BRONZINO, ANGELO (AGNOLO TORI)

BRONZINO, ANGELO (AGNOLO TORI). — Painter and poet, born at Monticelli (Florence) on 17 November 1503, died on 23 November 1563. At a very young age he worked under Raffaellino del Garbo, but soon collaborated with Pontormo at the Certosa of Florence (1522–25) and in the Capponi Chapel of S. Felicità (1524–26). After a stay in Pesaro (the frescoes of the villa called l’Imperiale), he returned to Florence (1533), where, again with Pontormo, he painted for the Medici in the villas of Poggio a Cajano, Careggi (1536), Castello (1537–42), and in the Medici Palace in Via Larga (1539), frescoes that have almost entirely been lost; in 1540 Duke Cosimo appointed him court painter.

The portraits to which so much of B.’s fame is linked were painted predominantly after 1540; the most notable, in which the painter’s style is best characterized by the precise drawing, firm tone, and abstract geometry of the composition, are those of Eleonora di Toledo with her son, of the young Garcia, of Maria de’ Medici, and of Cosimo Primo in the Uffizi; the Portrait of a Young Man, in the Agnew collection in New York; and that of Stefano Colonna, in the National Gallery of Rome. Earlier than this series (1534–40) are those of Ugo Martelli in Berlin (Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum), and of Bartolomeo and Lucrezia Panciatichi (Florence, Uffizi). Called to decorate the chapel of Eleonora di Toledo (1545–54) in the Palazzo Vecchio, he painted there the stupendous Deposition, now in Besançon, and several biblical scenes (Crossing of the Red Sea, the Springing Forth of the Water, and the Rain of Manna), in which certain Raphaelesque and Michelangelesque mannerisms are fruitfully assimilated by the painter; he gives these compositions elements of movement and complex composition, elements that develop in the warm works of a secular character, such as the allegories in London, Rome, and Budapest. Probable Flemish influences contributed to this gradual departure from sharply defined contours and sculptural forms; the pictorial quality of the later works with sacred subjects is inferior to that of the portraits,

(phot. Anderson)
BRONZINO, ANGELO - Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi. Florence, Uffizi Gallery.

since in them spontaneity is lacking (Deposition in the Museum of S. Marco, Sacrifice of Abraham, Limbo, Pietà in the Uffizi; Noli me tangere in the Louvre), or they reveal an overly external influence of Michelangelo (Resurrection in the church of the Most Holy Annunciation, in Florence; Nativity scene in the church of S. Stefano in Pisa), or indeed, despite their customary polish, come close to artifice (Martyrdom of the Saint in the church of S. Lorenzo in Florence).
BBL. - V. Mariani, Due disegni del B. al Louvre, in L'Arte, 29 (1926), pp. 58-60; A. Mc Comb, A. B., Cambridge 1928; P. Wescher, Enel B. s Portratt, in Pantheon, 1 (1930), p. 5; W. R. Valentiner, Eleonora da Toledo by B., in Bull. of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 22 (1942-43), pp. 1-3; C. Caversazzi, Un presunto ritratto di Torquato Tasso giovinetto, in Bergamun, 1 (1946), p. 47; L. Becherucci, Manieristi toscani, Bergamo 1944, pp. 42-51 (with bibliography).