Caporali, Giovanni Battista, also known as Bitti

CAPORALI, Giovanni Battista, also known as Bitti. - Son of Bartolomeo, born in Perugia around 1476 and died in 1560. A man of letters, architect, painter and miniaturist, a commentary on Vitruvius is remembered of him, while very little that is certain remains of his pictorial work.

First a pupil of his father, he was later active in the workshop of Pinturicchio, whom he helped to paint the panel at Umbertide with the Coronation (1503, now in the Vatican Library). Works of his are considered the fresco with Jesus between St. John the Baptist and St. Peter in the church of Cereseto near Panicale (around 1510) and the panel with the Nativity at Panicale (estimated at 1519) in which, beyond the Pinturicchiesque characteristics, the painter shows that he also adhered to the suggestions of the art of Perugino and of Raphael. Later, however, he seems to detach himself from the Umbrian current and to approach rather that of Rome headed by Giulio Romano, not without some pretension to Michelangelesque grandiloquence (see the frescoes of villa Passerini near Cortona of 1525, the vault of St. Mary of the Light in Perugia, at approximately the same time, and the stories of St. Anthony Abbot in the church of the same name at Deruta). A friend of men of letters and artists, he enjoyed good renown in his time and was also remembered by Vasari.

Gilberto Ronci