TIBALDI, PELLEGRINO. – Also called Pellegrino de' Pellegrini, painter and architect, b. at Puria (Valsolda) in 1527, d. at Milan on 27 May 1596.
He began painting in Bologna, within the prevailing Raffaelesque tradition, as demonstrated by the Marriage of St. Catherine and the Virgin and Saints (both in the Pinacoteca of Bologna); his presence in Rome is documented from 1549 to 1553. The Adoration of the Shepherds (Rome, Galleria Borghese), inspired by Michelangelo and Daniele da Volterra, with whom T. collaborated in the Rovere Chapel at Trinità dei Monti, dates from 1549; but soon, while decorating (c. 1550–53) the vault of the Chapel of S. Dionigi at S. Luigi dei Francesi and the Sala Paolina in Castel S. Angelo (Stories of Alexander, the Archangel Michael, Trajan), he turned, under the influence of the imaginative painting of Fr. Salviati, toward vehement and bizarre expressions, thoroughly congenial to his uninhibited and fiery imagination. This tendency became stronger after his return to Bologna, in the decoration of the Poggi Chapel in S. Giacomo Maggiore (c. 1555, Stories of the Baptist) and above all in the frescoes of Palazzo Poggi (1554–55, Stories of Ulysses and of St. Paul), executed with biting spirit, extremely vivid colours, and muscular figures in convoluted, exaggerated, caricatural poses. During a sojourn in the Marches (c. 1558 and following years), he worked in Ancona, executing at Palazzo Ferretti the frieze with the sinewy Divinities of Olympus, the frescoes of the Loggia dei Mercanti (1558–61), now badly damaged, and the limp and colouristically dull Baptism of Christ (c. 1560, Ancona, Pinacoteca; formerly in S. Agostino), whose now-dismembered predella consisted of the Visitation (Urbino, Galleria), the Birth of the Baptist (private collection in Emilia), and the Beheading (in Brera), where T.’s inventive imagination is combined with expressions of refined elegance and delicate observations of reality. Having interrupted painting for architecture, T. returned to it at intervals: first, during a new sojourn in Bologna, with works (Lucretia, 1569, Bologna, Pinacoteca; Silence, fresco, there, Museo civico) that indicate his temporary adjustment to the Mannerism of the second half of the century; and later, during his stay in Madrid (where he was summoned by Philip II in 1588), with the decoration of the Escorial (History of Christ, in the cloister of the Evangelists, and Allegories in the Library), in which the exuberance of his youthful Bolognese frescoes seems to re-emerge.
T. devoted himself to architecture during his Lombard sojourn from 1564 to 1588, encouraged by the enlightened patronage of St. Carlo Borromeo, who in 1567 appointed him architect
of the Fabbrica del Duomo. A robust movement of architectural members characterizes his principal works, which are: in Pavia, the Collegio Borromeo, arranged around a courtyard with a loggia on paired columns, which Richini would take as his model for that of Brera; and in Milan, the Canonica of the Duomo (1565 and following years), with its courtyard in rusticated bossage; the baptistery, crypt, and picturesque choir in the Cathedral, as well as various altars and the project for the façade, executed only in part, which drew him into a heated polemic with Martino Bassi; and the church of S. Fedele (begun in 1569 and completed by M. Bassi and Fr. M. Richini), noteworthy for its vertical development, accentuated by the dome. After his second stay in Bologna, he worked, among other things, on the designs for the massive circular temple of S. Sebastiano, vowed after the plague of 1569 and clearly inspired by classical models; for the sanctuaries of Saronno, Rho, and Caravaggio; and for the shrine of S. Carlo at the Lazzaretto, completed in 1591. – Vedi tav. VI.