PIERIN DEL VAGA, PIETRO BUONACCORSI, detto. - Painter b. in Florence in 1501, d. in Rome on 19 Oct. 1547. He belongs to the Roman school of the followers of Raphael. A pupil, in Florence, of a certain Andrea "dei ceri", then of Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio, he subsequently became the assistant of a local painter called "il Vaga" (whence the nickname), who took him to Rome.
There he collaborated on the frescoes of the Vatican Logge (Vasari assigns him several episodes, such as: The Hebrews Crossing the Jordan; The Destruction of Jericho; Joshua Stopping the Sun, etc.). With exquisite decorative sense he completed the medallions of the Sala dei Pontefici in the Borgia Apartment, the friezes of the cornices and the central roundel (Vasari). He later also worked in private houses, such as the Palazzo Baldassini (Via delle Coppelle) and the Palazzina Altoviti (fragments of frescoes now in the Museo di Palazzo Venezia). There survive by P. del V. a Pietà in S. Stefano del Cacco, the frescoes, left unfinished, in the Pucci Chapel in Trinità dei Monti, and the frescoes in the Chapel of the Crucifix in S. Marcello al Corso (1525). Taken prisoner during the Sack of Rome, P. d. V. went to Genoa, where among other things he worked in the Palazzo Doria, frescoing various rooms, with a mannerist style at once impetuous and skillful (Jupiter Hurling Thunderbolts at the Giants; Triumph of Scipio, etc.), a style that was later exemplary for Genoese painters. In 1539 he returned to Rome and painted in the Massimi Chapel in Trinità dei Monti together with Daniele da Volterra, at Castel S. Angelo (Sala del Perseo), etc. Other paintings to be remembered are: The Assumption of the Virgin in the Church of S. Maria Assunta in Trevignano, very close to the taste of Penni and Giulio Romano; some monochromes in the socle of the Stanza della Segnatura; the Galatea, of a precious Raphaelesque quality; the Nativity (from the Genoese period, dated 1534, now in America); the very beautiful Madonna of the Northbrook collection; and the others in Pisa (Cathedral), Madrid (Prado), Vienna (Liechtenstein Gallery), etc.
Bibliography7 works
Luigi Grassi