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Pietro da Cortona
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Early Days:
Pietro da Cortona, byname of Pietro Berrettini, born Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, (1 November 1596 – 16 May 1669) was an Italian artist and architect of High Baroque.Berrettini was born to a family of artisans including his uncle Filippo Berrettini, in Cortona, then a town in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. He first apprenticed with Andrea Commodi in Florence. But soon departed for Rome at about 1612, where he joined the studio of Baccio Ciarpi. In Rome, he had encouragement from many prominent patrons including the Colonna. According to a biography, his deft copies of Raphael's Roman frescoes brought him to the attention and patronage (1623) of the Sacchetti brothers, Marcello and Giulio Sacchetti, who became respectively papal treasurer and cardinal (1626) during the Barberini papacy. In the Sacchetti orbit, he met Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the nephew of Pope Urban VIII, as well as the antiquarian, Cassiano dal Pozzo.
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Career:
These three men helped him gain a major commission in Rome (1624-1626), a fresco decoration in the newly constructed Bernini church of Santa Bibiana. In 1626, the Sacchetti engaged Cortona to paint for them three large canvases of Sacrifice of Polyxena, Triumph of Bacchus, and Rape of the Sabines (the latter, c. 1629) and to paint a series of frescoes in the Villa Sacchetti in Castel Fusano, near Ostia, using a team that included the young Andrea Sacchi. Soon the rising prodigy would attract the patronage of the powerful papal Barberini family. He had already been involved in the fresco decoration of the Palazzo Mattei. And Cardinal Orsini had commissioned from him an Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1626) for San Salvatore in Lauro.
