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 sphere of the dominant Raphaelesque manner, as is shown by the Mystic 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) dates from 1549 and is inspired by Michelangelo and by Daniele da Volterra, with whom T. collaborated in the Rovere chapel at the Trinità dei Monti; but soon, in decorating (c. 1550-53) the vault of the chapel of St. Dionysius at S. Luigi dei Francesi and the Pauline Hall in Castel S. Angelo (Stories of Alexander, the Archangel Michael, Trajan), he turned, under the spell of the fanciful painting of Fr. Salviati, to impetuous, bizarre expressions, wholly congenial to his unbridled and fiery imagination. This tendency grew 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 a biting spirit, the most vivid colours and muscular figures in convoluted, exaggerated, caricatural poses. During a stay in the Marche (c. 1558 and following years), he worked at Ancona, executing in Palazzo Ferretti the frieze with the sinewy Deities of Olympus, the frescoes of the Loggia dei Mercanti (1558-61), now in poor condition, and the limp and colouristically insipid Baptism of Christ (c. 1560, Ancona, Pinacoteca; formerly in S. Agostino), whose predella, now dispersed, consisted of the Visitation (Urbino, Galleria), the Birth of the Baptist (private collection in Emilia) and the Decollation (in Brera), where T.'s whimsical 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 stay in Bologna, with works (the Lucretia, 1569, Bologna, Pinacoteca; Silence, fresco, ibid., Museo civico) that indicate a temporary conforming on his part 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 (Story of Christ, in the cloister of the Evangelists, and Allegories in the Library), in which the exuberance of the youthful Bolognese frescoes seems to revive.
T. devoted himself to architecture during his Lombard stay from 1564 to 1588, encouraged by the enlightened patronage of St. Charles Borromeo, who in 1567 appointed him architect of the Fabbrica del Duomo. A robust movement of members characterizes his principal works, which are at Pavia: the Collegio Borromeo, arranged around a courtyard with a loggia on paired columns, which Richini was to take as his inspiration for that of Brera; and at Milan: the Canonica del Duomo (1565 and following years) with its courtyard in rustic bossage; the baptistery, the crypt, the picturesque choir in the Cathedral, as well as various altars and the design for the façade, executed only in part, which earned him a heated polemic with Martino Bassi; the church of S. Fedele (begun in 1569 and completed by M. Bassi and Fr. M. Richini), notable for its development in height accentuated by the dome. After the second Bolognese stay he worked, among other things, on the designs for the massive circular temple of S. Sebastiano, vowed after the plague of 1569, of clearly classical inspiration, for the sanctuaries of Saronno, Rho and Caravaggio and for the shrine of St. Charles at the Lazzaretto, completed in 1591. - See plate VI.
Bibliography5 works
Amalia Mezzetti