CARRACCI (CARRACCI). — A family of Bolognese artists. In response to the need to overcome the *maniera* (q.v.), in its extreme and degenerate aspects of exaggerated intellectualism and impoverished inspiration, the Carracci proposed the possibility of combining the styles of several great 16th-century painters: varying, for example, the spatial composition of Raphael, the sfumato of Correggio, the plastic drawing of Michelangelo, and the color of Titian. This was to be, in their theoretical intentions, the program of the Accademia dei Desiderosi (and later the Accademia degli Incamminati), founded in Bologna in 1582 by Annibale and Agostino Carracci. Given these premises, the pictorial reform of the Carracci (eclecticism), exalted by 17th-century art literature, today takes on a different meaning, in the sense of a critical and cultural attitude implicit in it (C. L. Ragghianti), which, however, does not exclude, in numerous concrete cases, the attainment of art. Indeed, the reform of the Carracci had a vast resonance, equal to that achieved by Caravaggism.
**AGOSTINO**, b. in Bologna on 15 Aug. 1557, d. in Parma on 22 Feb. 1602, engraver and painter. He was the least gifted and the slowest in execution. He was a pupil of Prospero Fontana, of the *Paeserotti*, and of his cousin Lodovico. The painting of the *Communion of St. Jerome* (Bologna, Pinacoteca) shows Correggesque influences. He collaborated with Lodovico on the frescoes in Palazzo Fava and Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna.
**ANNIBALE**, b. in Bologna on 3 Nov. 1560, d. in Rome on 15 July 1609, pupil of Lodovico, brother of Agostino. Initially influenced by Cesi and Passerotti (*Baptism of Christ* for S. Gregorio); then he studied Correggio in Parma and, in Venice, Titian and Paolo Veronese. But his figurative formation was vast and complex. He collaborated on the frescoes in Palazzo Fava (where he reveals a certain immaturity), in Palazzo Magnani (1592), and in Palazzo Sampieri. His art fully asserts itself in the famous decoration of Palazzo Farnese (1595), the beginning of the great Baroque decorative cycles. The principle of Michelangelesque plasticity and the spatial rhythm of Raphael, combined with Venetian academic taste and Correggesque sfumato, finds here a happy and singular interpretation. Among his paintings are: the *Deposition* (Parma, Galleria), the *Assumption* (Bologna, Pinacoteca), and the *Repose of Christ* (Louvre Museum). Conceived by him but executed only in part are the lunettes of the Doria Gallery in Rome; important for their original interpretation of landscape.
**LODOVICO**, b. on 21 Apr. 1555 in Bologna, d. on 13 Nov. 1619, appears less prolific but more concrete. He studied Correggio and Parmigianino in Parma, and Tintoretto in Venice. This pictorial erudition, which also involves several Bolognese painters (Passerotti, Tibaldi, etc.), is evident in the *Madonna in trono e santi* (Bologna, Pinacoteca). In addition to the aforementioned frescoes in Bolognese palaces, mention should be made of the *Madonna degli Scalzi* and the *Conversion of St. Paul* (Bologna, Pinacoteca).
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