BORTOLONI, Mattia

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

After the magnificent church cupola frescoes of the seventeenth century by Lanfranco, Pozzo, Baciccio, Pietro da Cortona, and others, the eighteenth century achieved its own spectacular effects with cupola frescoes enlivened by the infusion of natural light. Cupola painting was still the painter’s greatest challenge. Conquering such tall spaces was made easier by a more modern scaffolding design widely employed following the building of the new Saint Peter’s. The cupola fresco in the pilgrimage church of Regina Montis Regalis, erected on the site of an appearance of the Virgin near Vicoforte, in Piedmont, serves as an example of how, thanks to technical and artistic innovations, architecture and decoration led to a solution virtually impossible to outdo in theatrical opulence.

The Venetian Mattia Bortolini and the virtually unknown quadratura painter Felice Biella painted the shell of the cupola, which rises above a tall, light-filled drum and presents a surface area of more than 6.000 sq.m in a mere three years, using the simulated coffering that had already been painted for an Assumption of the Virgin which they kept.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The scene of Esau Selling his Birthright to Jacob is set in their father, Isaac’s humble kitchen, where, clearly visible in the centre, is a hearth with a pot of boiling lentils that is the prize being bartered between the brothers, who are the sole protagonists of the event.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The image of Hagar in the Desert is evocative in its depiction of the main figure and her little son, Ishmael, saved from death by the intervention of an angel, who points out the well where they can slake their thirst.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The Judgment of Solomon occurs within the royal palace, where only the protagonists in the event are depicted - the king seated on his throne, the two mothers, the executioner who has been called in to cut the contested newborn in half, while the other baby lies abandoned on the ground. There is no trace of the numerous and varied personalities who traditionally witness the scene in similar representation.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

In The Flood, a long procession of people and animals attempt to escape death by climbing toward the top of a high, steep mountain that is still above the waters, while a few other figures have found momentary refuge on a rocky crag in the foreground, it, too, now close to being submerged. Only in the background to the right can one glimpse Noah’s ark, floating safely on the waters.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

In the Transport of the Ark only a few figures appear in clear focus in the foreground - King David with his harp, a horn player, and two soldiers - while the procession is made up of an indistinct crowd, painted almost in monochrome.

The Villa Cornaro was commissioned from Palladio by Giorgio Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman. The construction began in 1553, and in the following year the Cornaro family began living in the central portion, although the wings and the second story of the loggia had not yet been built. These were added later, during different periods, one beginning in 1569, and the other in 1588, the latter under the direction of Vincenzo Scamozzi.

During the 1588 work phase, Scamozzi had Camillo Mariani create stucco statues for the central hall, depicting two renowned members of the Cornaro family, Caterina, queen of Cyprus, and her husband James II Lusignan. It was not until the early eighteenth century that Andrea Cornaro decided to provide the villa interiors with pictorial decoration. In 1716, he engaged Mattia Bortoloni to paint six rooms on the first floor and two small rooms on the second.

The works on the first floor focus on episodes from the Old Testament, while those on the upper floor are derived from the New Testament. On the first floor, the small rooms to the left of the main hall are dedicated to the narration of the stories of Moses and King Solomon, while those to the right are reserved for episodes relating to Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The images are extremely simplified in the presentation of the subject matter.

The frescoes in the Villa Cornaro are Bortolini’s first known works. The style of the fresco cycle is surprising, its originality distances it from any work the painter would create in the future.