Morazzone, Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, called Il

MORAZZONE, PIER FRANCESCO MAZZUCCHELLI, Called Il. - Born at Morazzone, near Varese, in 1573, according to an anonymous eighteenth-century catalogue, not confirmed; died at Piacenza in 1626. He was considered by Marino, in the Adone, together with Serrano and Boccaccini, one of the greatest Milanese painters.

He worked in Rome; but of the Roman works only the frescoes of the church of S. Silvestro remain, of a gentle beauty and coloristic suggestion and of an exact naturalism, which, besides echoes of the Sienese Baroccesque milieu, retain traces of an earlier Lombard education. In Venice he is said to have studied Tintoretto: from 1602 to 1605 he stayed at Varallo, occupied with the frescoes of the chapel of the Salita al Calvario, then at Milan, where he executed sacred and profane works for the most part lost. In 1608 he decorated the processional banner of the cathedral of Como, still extant, and in 1609 he dated at Varese the frescoes of the chapel of the Flagellation at the S. Monte, then at Varallo he worked, with some intervals, until 1617. Of 1618 is a small painting of the cathedral of Milan, of 1611 the altar of the Magdalene in S. Vittore at Varese, between 1615 and 1617, in the same church he painted the chapel of the Rosary, his masterpiece. In 1616 he was at Orta, in 1617 at the Certosa of Pavia, in 1620 he completed the decoration of the chapel of the Buona Morte of Novara. Death interrupted the frescoes of the vault of the cathedral of Piacenza, begun in 1625. The M. also worked at Mantua and at Turin: few notices remain of his last years. He collaborated with Cerano and Procaccini in the painting of the Martyrdom of St. Justina and of St. Secundus of Brera. He felt the suggestion of Caravaggesque painting but remained fundamentally an eclectic.

Eugenio Battisti