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POZZI, Stefano - b. 1699 Roma, d. 1768 Roma - WGA

POZZI, Stefano

(b. 1699 Roma, d. 1768 Roma)

Italian painter and draughtsman. His father, Giovanni Pozzi (1672-1752), arrived in Rome c. 1690 as an innkeeper and became a renowned ivory carver. He had four sons, all artists: Rocco (1701-1774), an engraver; Andrea (1718-1769), an ivory carver; Giuseppe (1723-1765), a painter, and Stefano, the eldest, who became a pupil of the two best followers of Carlo Maratti: Andrea Procaccini until he left for Spain in 1720, then Agostino Masucci.

In 1732 Stefano was admitted to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon (of which he was Reggente in 1739) and in 1736 to the Accademia di San Luca. He worked primarily for churches, painting, for example, eight ovals (c. 1736) for San Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome (in situ), and the Death of St Joseph (1742; in situ) for San Nome di Maria, Rome. In 1744 he was summoned to Naples by Cardinal Spinelli to decorate the apse of the cathedral restored by Paolo Posi; for the right wall he painted the large oil of SS Januarius and Agrippino Driving out the Saracens (in situ) and on the vault a fresco of a Choir of Angels (in situ).

In subsequent commissions he was linked with the architect Luigi Vanvitelli: in 1744 he produced two paintings for the Montemorcino monastery that Vanvitelli had just built for the Olivetans at Perugia (now the Palazzo dell’ Università): an Annunciation (in situ) and the Blessed Bernardino Tolomei among the Plague-stricken (Rome, Santa Francesca Romana). For the library that Vanvitelli designed for the Palazzo Sciarra-Colonna in Rome, he painted Allegories of the Signs of the Zodiac (in situ).

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Wall decoration

The picture shows a detail of the wall decoration in the Salone Turco in the Palazzo Colonna.

The powerful Colonna family had lived on the western slope of the Quirinale in Rome since the Middle Ages. Over the years it managed to link together the various houses it had built and purchased over time into a unified ensemble of palaces, courtyards, and gardens. In the seventeenth century, the art-loving cardinal Girolamo I Colonna (1604-1666) began turning the complex into a Baroque residence. Construction began in 1650. The south wing, containing the Grande Galleria, was built between 1661 and 1700 at the behest of the cardinal’s nephew Lorenzo Onofrio (1637-1689).

Under the sons of Filippo II Colonna (1663-1714) more additions were made to the palace. A new wing was erected between 1730-33 by Nicola Michetti. Of this wing only the corner pavilion has survived unchanged, and in it is one of the loveliest interiors from the Roman Rococo, the Coffeehouse. The most important eighteenth-century additions were completed under Cardinal Girolamo II Colonna (1708-1763). He commissioned Paolo Posi to build a gallery in the highly theatrical style of the eighteenth century. The cardinal’s favourite painter was Stefano Pozzi who, together with his brother Giuseppe (1723-1765) and the landscape painter Giovanni Angeloni (1740-1788), painted the doors, mirrors, and wall panels of Girolamo’s apartment, the so-called Salone Turco, with cheerful and decorative arabesques and small-format scenes.

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Wall decoration
Wall decoration by

Wall decoration

The picture shows a detail of the wall decoration in the Salone Turco in the Palazzo Colonna.

The powerful Colonna family had lived on the western slope of the Quirinale in Rome since the Middle Ages. Over the years it managed to link together the various houses it had built and purchased over time into a unified ensemble of palaces, courtyards, and gardens. In the seventeenth century, the art-loving cardinal Girolamo I Colonna (1604-1666) began turning the complex into a Baroque residence. Construction began in 1650. The south wing, containing the Grande Galleria, was built between 1661 and 1700 at the behest of the cardinal’s nephew Lorenzo Onofrio (1637-1689).

Under the sons of Filippo II Colonna (1663-1714) more additions were made to the palace. A new wing was erected between 1730-33 by Nicola Michetti. Of this wing only the corner pavilion has survived unchanged, and in it is one of the loveliest interiors from the Roman Rococo, the Coffeehouse. The most important eighteenth-century additions were completed under Cardinal Girolamo II Colonna (1708-1763). He commissioned Paolo Posi to build a gallery in the highly theatrical style of the eighteenth century. The cardinal’s favourite painter was Stefano Pozzi who, together with his brother Giuseppe (1723-1765) and the landscape painter Giovanni Angeloni (1740-1788), painted the doors, mirrors, and wall panels of Girolamo’s apartment, the so-called Salone Turco, with cheerful and decorative arabesques and small-format scenes.

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