COLA dell'AMATRICE. – Nicola Filotesio, called dell’Amatrice after his place of birth, an Abruzzese painter and architect. He lived most of his life in Ascoli Piceno, in the first half of the 16th century. The earliest information about him dates from 1514. In 1521 he was granted citizenship of Ascoli and appointed public architect. Traces of this activity are found in Ascoli in the monument to Paolo III and in the rear façade of the Palazzo del Popolo, and in Aquila in the beautiful church of S. Bernardino. The last information concerning him dates from 1547.
His personality as a painter initially emerged within the Marchigian orbit of Carlo and Vittore Crivelli, whom he perhaps came to know through Pietro Alamanno: the S. Giacomo della Marca in the Galleria Nazionale of Urbino, the Quattro santi in the church of S. Angelo Magno in Ascoli, and the polyptych with the Virgin, the Dead Christ, and four saints in the Pinacoteca of the same city demonstrate his faithful Crivellian descent. Subsequently, knowledge of the Umbrians and of the great masters of the period, including Michelangelo, is evident in his works; noteworthy are the polyptych in the Pinacoteca of Ascoli, dated 1514, and the Assumption in the Vatican Pinacoteca, dated 1515.
(Alinari photograph)
COLA dell'AMATRICE – Main portal of the Palazzo del Popolo – Ascoli Piceno.