ROSSO FIORENTINO - The Deposition from the Cross.
Volterra, Palazzo dei Priori, Picture Gallery.

the altarpiece of Villamagna. From 1522 is the great altarpiece of the Dei, formerly in S. Spirito and now at the Pitti, which reveals a greater study of formal and compositional balance, certainly through the influence of analogous compositions by Sarto. In S. Lorenzo is the Marriage of Mary, of 1523, likewise carefully composed on traditional models but extremely sharp in its details; from the same year is the extraordinary Moses and the Daughters of Jethro: a most daring composition resolved through formal liberties that are truly anticipatory. In 1523 Rosso moved to Rome where, led astray by the overwhelming examples of Raphael and Michelangelo, he frescoed in S. Maria della Pace the Creation of Eve and the Original Sin, perhaps his weakest works. Having fled because of the sack of 1527, he went to Perugia and Arezzo: from this period are the Deposition (1528) in S. Lorenzo of Borgo S. Sepolcro and the Transfiguration for the cathedral of Città di Castello (1528-30). In 1530 he moved to France. The works executed there have not survived except for the Deposition in the Louvre (1537-40), inasmuch as the Gallery of Francis I in the castle of Fontainebleau, painted with collaborators between 1534 and '37, has been gravely disfigured by alterations and reworkings. Rosso's work in France had great influence in the shaping of the school of Fontainebleau.

His graphic production is very important, surviving in numerous examples (Paris, London, Florence, etc.).

Rosso's personality, long misunderstood, has only recently been reappraised as one of the highest and most original expressions of early Tuscan Mannerism.

Bibliography9 works

BIBL.: [G. Vasari, Vite, ed. Milanesi, V, Florence 1906, p. 155 ff.; F. Goldschmidt, Pontormo, Rosso, und Bronzino, Leipzig 1911; H. Voss, Die Malerei der Spätrenaissance in Rom und Florenz, I, Berlin 1920, p. 182 ff.; K. Kusemberg, Le R., Paris 1931; id., R. Giov. Battista, in Thieme-Becker, XXIX, pp. 61-63; Venturi, IX, v. p. 193 ff.; L. Becherucci, Manierismi toscani, Bergamo 1944, p. 23 ff.; P. Barocchi, Il R. F., Rome 1950; R. Longhi, Recensione a P. Barocchi, op. cit., in Paragone, n. 13 (1951), p. 58 ff.

Carla Guglielmi

@incollection{ec10_rosso_fiorentino, author = {Guglielmi, Carla}, title = {Rosso Fiorentino}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {1388--1389}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/rosso-fiorentino} }

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