THE GIANTS OF THE BAROQUE

In the first half of the seventeenth century the style that appeared in Rome would dominate European taste for the next one hundred years: the Baroque. Among the painters, sculptors, and architects of the Roman Baroque, six were particularly influential: Annnibale and Agostino Carracci, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Gian-Lorenzo Bernini, Pietro da Cortona and Francesco Borromini. Their careers were propelled by popes and cardinals born into powerful families: the Farnese, Borghese, Pamphilj, Barberini, and Chigi. These five lectures will look at the works of these six artists and their relationships with their patrons.

PIETRO DA CORTONA AND THE BARBERINI

Amongst other commissions, Pietro da Cortona executed for the Barberini, were designs for tapestries and ceremonial costumes, illustrations for a botanical book; and the Triumph of Divine Providence, the fresco on the ceiling of the gran salone of the Palazzo Barberini. Pietro went one step further than the Carracci: in this fresco, monumental allegorical figures ascend into a limitless sky, a quintessentially Baroque spectacle.