PIETRO da CORTONA (BERRETTINI P.). — Born in Cortona on 1 November 1596, died in Rome on 16 May 1669; he was a painter and architect. He pursued his initial studies in painting in Florence and Rome.
The proximity of Domenichino and Annibale Carracci, but above all that of Poussin, was of great importance in his formation. His first Roman sojourn (1612–37) produced a wealth of works: from the Triumph of Bacchus (Capitoline Gallery), to the frescoes and altarpiece of S. Bibiana (1624–25), the frescoes of Castel Fusano and Palazzo Mattei, the Sacrifice of Polyxena, the Rape of the Sabines and Darius Defeated by Alexander (1623–30) in the Capitoline Gallery, and the Adoration of the Shepherds in S. Salvatore in Lauro. From 1631–36 is the altarpiece in S. Maria della Concezione with S. Paul and Ananias; from 1632–33, the frescoes of the intimate Chapel of Palazzo Barberini, with scenes from the New Testament and the trompe-l’œil stuccoes of a room with figures of Peace, Abundance, and scenes from the Old Testament, as well as the mythological scenes of the corridor; somewhat later came the grandiose allegory exalting the Barberini, with the Triumph of Divine Providence on the vault of the great gallery (1633–39), the latter work revealing more than any other his extraordinary skill as a great master of perspective, an airy decorator of spaces, supremely adept at foreshortening and at “breaking through” walls; here, for the first time, effects of aerial perspective beneath open skies were achieved. The success of this new manner of his was immense: it influenced all subsequent painting and spread throughout Europe. From the same years dates the fresco with the Angels and the Instruments of the Passion in the church of the Chiesa Nuova. Important in 1637 was his journey through northern Italy, where he encountered Correggio and the Venetians, even before completing the frescoes of Palazzo Barberini. In that same year, he had already begun decorating Palazzo Pitti (Sala della Stufa) with the Four Ages; in 1641 and 1642 he frescoed the ceiling of the Sala di Venere there in collaboration with Ciro Ferri, in 1642–45 the Sala di Giove, in 1646 that of Marte, and in 1647 that of Apollo, the latter being completed from his cartoons by Ciro Ferri in 1660. In 1647 his second Roman sojourn began, ending with the artist’s death. From 1651–54 date the frescoes with scenes from the Aeneid in Palazzo Doria Pamphili in Piazza Navona, as well as the dome and pendentives of S. Maria della Vallicella with the Trinity in Glory and four Prophets; and in the same church, a few years later, the Assumption of the apse and the Vision of S. Philip Neri on the nave vault. From the decade 1652–62 date the mosaics of the domes over the naves of the second and third bays of S. Pietro, commissioned from him by Innocent X; the other mosaics were completed by C. Ferri in 1661.
After an interval of almost ten years, he began his career as a simple and sober architect: from the design for the small palace of the Pigneto villa, to his participation in the completion of Palazzo Barberini, the church of SS. Luca e Martino (1640–50), the Cappella della Concezione in S. Lorenzo in Damaso (1635), the architectural designs for Palazzo Pitti, the tribune and dome of the Chiesa Nuova (1647–56), and the churches of S. Maria della Pace and S. Maria in Via Lata, in all these works he is a singular balancer of Bernini’s and Borromini’s Baroque with the measured Tuscan manner of Buontalenti and Ammannati, always sober in comparison with the Romans, yet endowed with a very vivid pictorial sensitivity of his own, achieving particular effects of movement and relief especially in the evocative façades of the church of S. Maria della Pace and S. Maria in Via Lata. B. was also responsible for a Treatise on Painting and Sculpture, in collaboration with Fr. Ottonelli (Florence, 1652). — Vedi tav. XCVIII.