DOMENICHINO (Domenico Zampieri, called Il). - Painter, b. in Bologna on 21 Oct. 1581, d. in Naples on 6 Apr. 1641. In his native city he was a pupil of Dionigi Calvaert and then of the Carracci. Annibale Carracci took him with him to Rome to work in the Palazzo Farnese. His first fresco work, the Martyrdom of St. Andrew, in the chapel near S. Gregorio al Celio, dates to 1608. In 1610 he finished the decoration of the chapel of St. Nilus in the church of the abbey of Grottaferrata; in 1614 he painted the Communion of St. Jerome, now in the Vatican Picture Gallery; between 1616 and 1617 he executed the Stories of St. Cecilia in S. Luigi de' Francesi; the Assumption on the ceiling he designed for S. Maria in Trastevere is from 1617. From 1624 to 1628 he worked on the frescoes in S. Andrea della Valle; in 1630 he completed the pendentives of the dome of S. Carlo ai Catinari, and was commissioned to decorate the chapel of the treasure in the cathedral of Naples.
In D., following the Carracci, the classicist tendency of the seventeenth century took concrete form. His clear, limpid and cold drawing, as seen in the Martyrdom of St. Andrew, which appears derived from the study of Raphael's Stanze and tapestries (Sacrifice at Lystra, Death of Ananias), does not in that case prevent him from being deficient in the disjointed and disorganized composition. Annibale Carracci nevertheless praised the paintings of S. Gregorio al Celio for the effectiveness of the representation. At other times the classicism of D. gives rise to a dry, almost archaic manner, as in the Meeting of St. Nilus with the Emperor Otto, where everything is too affected and recherché, and to an almost schematic composition of the picture, as in the Construction of the Cloister of Grottaferrata, or too staid, as in the Transfiguration of the Possessed (Grottaferrata, abbey).
The most famous work of D., admired even in the full neoclassical reaction, is the Communion of St. Jerome, then numbered among the most celebrated paintings of Rome and placed beside Raphael's Transfiguration. For it the artist was inspired by a very similar painting by Agostino Carracci and chose a dramatic and moving moment in the life of the Saint, achieving supremely pathetic effects.
Among the best decorative paintings of D. are the frescoes in S. Andrea della Valle; the Evangelists in the pendentives of the dome derive together from Correggio, Raphael and Michelangelo.
In the cathedral of Naples, after Lanfranco repainted the dome of the chapel of the treasure, there remain, by D., the frescoes of the pendentives: the Virgin interceding for Naples; Christ welcomes St. Januarius into heaven; Christ commands St. Januarius to protect Naples; the Sts. Januarius, Agrippinus and Agnello intercede for Naples, and other scenes in the lunettes.
Among the sacred works of D. special mention also deserves the Liberation of St. Peter in the sacristy of St. Peter in Chains in Rome; among the profane works particular mention should be made of the Hunt of Diana and the Cumaean Sibyl (Rome, Borghese Gallery). - See plate CVII.
Bibliography2 works
Vincenzo Galzio