PASSIGNANO - b. 1559 Passignano, d. 1638 Firenze - WGA

PASSIGNANO

(b. 1559 Passignano, d. 1638 Firenze)

Italian painter, originally Domenico Cresti. Around the age of nine he was sent to Florence, where, according to Baldinucci, he studied first with Girolamo Macchietti and then with Giovan Battista Naldini. His most important teacher, however, was Federico Zuccaro with whom he worked, from 1575 to 1579, on completing the decoration of the interior of the cupola at the cathedral, which had been left unfinished at the death of Giorgio Vasari in 1574. In 1580 Passignano accompanied Zuccaro to Rome, staying there two years. No works are known from this period, but a few are extant from the following years spent in Venice (1582-88), where exposure to the works of Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese and Palma Giovane seems to have enhanced his use of colour and added a rich atmospheric quality to his Florentine style.

Passignano traveled often to Rome and worked for several popes, from Gregory XIII to Sixtus V and Clement VIII. Eventually he, together with Santi di Tito, became the ideological point of reference in the assignment of all large pictorial commissions of a religious nature. He was actively at work in St. Peter’s Basilica under Urban VIII in the second decade of the seventeenth century. At the same time he made frequent return trips to Florence and in fact died there in 1638.

In Florence, he painted frescoes of the Translation and Funeral of Saint Antoninus (1589) for the Cappella Salviati in San Marco and Preaching of John the Baptist (1590) for San Michele Visdomini. He painted a Nativity (1594) for Lucca’s Duomo di San Martino. Other works can be found in church of San Frediano in Pisa as fresco and in Uffizi Gallery. He painted famous portraits of Galileo and Michelangelo.

Michelangelo Showing Pope Paul IV the Model for St. Peter's

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Recognition of the Body of Sant'Antonino

This fresco is located in the vestibule of the Salviati Chapel in the church of San Marco in Florence.

The Salviati family had been linked by marriage to the Medici (Pope Leo XI was the son of Francesca Salviati, the daughter of Giacomo Salviati and Lucrezia de’ Medici). The Salviati family chapel centred on the sepulchre of the Florentine archbishop Antonino Pierozzi (Saint Antoninus); a bronze effigy topped the ark that contained his remains. Each of the three walls feature a large painting; flanking these were marble figures of saints that had ties to the patrons, the church, and the city, and above each of the marble figures was a corresponding bronze relief showing an episode from St Antoninus’s life. The images set into the dome filled in further elements from the bishop’s biography.

Giambologna was the architect and the sculptor of the statues, furthermore, he oversaw the execution of the work by other artists. On the back wall, a canvas by Alessandro Allori depicts Christ in Limbo, while on the left and right walls Christ Healing the Leper by Francesco Morandini and Calling of Matthew by Giovan Battista Naldini, respectively, can be seen. The walls of the vestibule was decorated in fresco by Domenico Passignano following the completion of the chapel proper. The dome of the chapel is by Bernardino Poccetti. The chapel was completed in May 1589.

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The Resurrection

In the latter half of the seventeenth century this painting was placed in the Chapel of Saint Ignatius, located in the area known as La Storta, 12 km outside Rome on the Via Cassia. The picture, probably born out of devotional motives, is a worthy example of the mature works of Passignano.

It conforms to the pictorial requirements of the Counter-Reformation, which encouraged paintings designed to explain theology according to the dictates of Church teachings. Typical, for example, was the use of “captions” drawn from passages in the Bible. Passignano created two distinct zones in his canvas: below, there is the darkness of the sepulcher, with the guards asleep next to a nearly spent fire; above, a radiant and triumphant Christ encircled by angels.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 22 minutes):

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa brevis

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