Casolani, Alessandro

CASOLANI, ALESSANDRO. - Painter, born in Siena, to Agostino, in 1552, died there on 20 January 1606. After a stay in Rome, having returned to Siena he began an extremely intense activity that made him one of the most esteemed masters of his time.

Among the most important works of this period are counted a Nativity in the church of the Servi, the large canvas with St. Catherine working for the return of the Pope from Avignon for the "Oratorio della Cucina" in the saint's house at Fontebranda, where reflections of the painting of Girolamo Muziano can also be discerned, the restoration of the fresco on the antiportico of Camollia (1587), today almost entirely destroyed, and some frescoes with allegorical figures in the tower of the Mangia, whence C. took the nickname "Alessandro dalla Torre". A Conception in the church of the Cappuccini would indicate, according to the old historiographers, the transition to a second, freer and more vivacious manner, documented by various paintings in churches in the territory of Casole d'Elsa and in the canvas with the Nativity in the cathedral of Siena (1594). A Resurrection that was in S. Francesco and that was greatly praised by Guido Reni was destroyed in a fire. The Carthusian Order, for which C. had frescoed the Last Supper in the refectory of the charterhouse of Pontignano near Siena, procured for him the invitation to go to the charterhouse of Pavia, where, together with Pietro Sorri, he frescoed three segments of the cupola with Apocalyptic Scenes and executed other things: many paintings, on his return to Siena, he painted for churches of Fermo, Naples, Genoa, Nuremberg and Augsburg. The best known and most valuable composition of the last period is the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew (signed and dated 1604), still existing in the church of the Carmine in Siena. A painter very famous in the past, today he appears to us a noble and prolific mannerist largely influenced by Barocci as were almost all his Sienese contemporaries and rather inclined to change manner. His son ILARIO finished various paintings left incomplete by his father, and was active, besides in Siena, in Rome where he decorated the church of S. Maria dei Monti: he was far inferior to Alessandro and died around 1630.

Enzo Carli