PIAZZETTA, GIAMBATTISTA
Painter, born in Venice on 13 February 1682, died there on 28 April 1754.
Decisive for his formation was his long stay in Bologna (between 1703 and 1711), during which he frequented the workshop of G. M. Crespi and saw the works of the young Guercino, deriving from them a taste for minute problems and that formal solidity which would remain the most constant and most typical features of his art. To the Bolognese period is attributed an *Hercules and Omphale* (private American collection). Returning to Venice, he remained there until his death, which overtook him in poverty, despite his indefatigable industry and the wide fame he had acquired among his contemporaries (in 1750 he had been named director of the Academy).
To his first Venetian period belong: the *St. James Dragged to Martyrdom* (c. 1720: S. Stae), in which the agitation of the gestures finds its counterpart in the violent chiaroscuro, on a reduced scale of brown tones, with the typical reddish colouring in the flesh; the *Susanna* (Uffizi) and, later, the *Portrait of Giulia Lama* (formerly in the collection, now in Vienna). Between 1725 and 1727 P. executed the splendid *Madonna with St. Philip Neri* (S. Maria della Fava) and the canvas ceiling with the *Glory of St. Dominic* (SS. Giovanni e Paolo), solving problems of light, perspective and space that anticipate Tiepolo, on whom P. had notable influence. To 1732 are assigned other altarpieces: the *Guardian Angel and Saints* (S. Vitale, Venice) and the dramatic *Ecstasy of St. Francis* (Museum of Vicenza); to the same period belong the *Judith* (Accademia di S. Luca in Rome), *Shepherds* (Metropolitan Museum of New York), *The Standard-Bearer* (Dresden Gallery), the *Portrait of a Young Sculptor* (formerly in the Grassi collection in Florence).
In the mature period, which begins with the *Assumption* (1735) now in the Museum of Lille, the artist lightens his tones and varies his colours, while maintaining the chiaroscural solidity of the figures (altarpiece with *Three Saints* [church of the Jesuits in Venice, c. 1739]). This change of taste favours the execution of subjects no longer dramatic but pathetic, inspired by episodes from the Bible or popular scenes: *Rebecca at the Well* (Brera Gallery in Milan), *The Fortune-Teller* (Venetian Academy), *Pastoral* (Art Institute of Chicago) and *Idyll on the Shore* (collection, with Staedel in Cologne), the latter perhaps executed in 1742. In 1744, with the *Beheading of the Baptist* (Museum of the Santo in Padua), plastic-compositive problems again prevail, executed with colours once more sombre and a violent chiaroscural luminism. To this moment belong the *Supper at Emmaus* (Cleveland Museum) and the *Judith* (School of the Carmine in Venice; variant in the National Gallery of Ancient Art in Rome). Signs of fatigue appear in the crowded compositions of numerous works from this period: *St. Cajetan* (Pinacoteca dei Concordi in Rovigo, where there are also two good portraits by P.), *Madonna and Saints* (Meduno, Udine), *Madonna and St. Philip* (S. Andrea in Cortona, 1744), *Adoration of the Shepherds* (cathedral of Würzburg, 1745), the *Death of Darius* (Palazzo Pisani Moretta) and *Mucius Scaevola* (Palazzo Barbaro in Venice), in which the chiaroscural unity of colour is lost in the complexity of the compositions. In his last years the collaboration of his numerous pupils and followers (G. Angeli, Maggiotto, Cappella, Chiozzotto, G. Lama, etc.) becomes ever more evident, whose abundant and often monotonous production was overshadowed by that of the master, essentially through the work of Pallucchini. Fundamental for the knowledge of P. are his drawings, true finished works and not mere studies, of which notable groups remain in the Accademia and the Museo Correr in Venice, in the collections of Alverà and Brass, there in the Cleveland Museum, etc.