Baldassare Tommaso Peruzzi (7 March 1481 – 6 January 1536) was an Italian
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
and
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
, born in a small town near
Siena
Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.
The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...
(in Ancaiano, ''frazione'' of
Sovicille
Sovicille is a '' comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Siena in the Italian region Tuscany, located about south of Florence and about southwest of Siena.
Sovicille borders the ''comuni'' of Casole d'Elsa, Chiusdino, Monteriggioni, Monter ...
) and died in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
. He worked for many years with
Bramante
Donato Bramante ( , , ; 1444 – 11 April 1514), born as Donato di Pascuccio d'Antonio and also known as Bramante Lazzari, was an Italian architect and painter. He introduced Renaissance architecture to Milan and the High Renaissance st ...
,
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...
, and later
Sangallo during the erection of the new
St. Peter's. He returned to his native Siena after the
Sack of Rome (1527) where he was employed as architect to the Republic. For the Sienese he built new fortifications for the city and designed (though did not build) a remarkable dam on the Bruna River near
Giuncarico. He seems to have moved back to Rome permanently by 1535. He died there the following year and was buried in the Rotunda of the Pantheon, near Raphael.
He was a painter of frescoes in the ''Cappella San Giovanni'' (Chapel of St John the Baptist) in the
Duomo of Siena.
His son
Giovanni Sallustio was also an architect. Another son, Onorio, learned painting from his father, then became a Dominican priest in the convent of
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. He then stopped painting until requested by his superiors at San Romano di Lucca to paint the organ doors of the church.
Design and decoration of Villa Farnesina
Almost all art critics ascribe the design of the Villa Chigi in Rome, now known more commonly as the
Villa Farnesina, to Peruzzi. In this villa, two wings branch off from a central hall with a simple arrangement of
pilaster
In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...
s, and a decorative
frieze on the exterior of the buildin
Some of the frescoed paintings which adorn the interior rooms are by Peruzzi. One example is the Sala delle Prospettive, in which Peruzzi revived the perspective schemes of
Melozzo da Forli and
Mantegna, possibly under the influence of both. The walls of the room are painted so that when one stands toward the left, one has the illusion that one is standing in an open-air terrace, lined by pillars, looking out over a continuous landscape. The decoration of the façade, the work of Peruzzi, has almost entirely vanished, but it is documented by an anonymous French artist in a drawing, now held by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Ar
To decorate this villa on the
Tiber
The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by th ...
many artists were employed, and just as the style of the villa in no wise recalls the old castellated type of country-house, so the paintings in harmony with the pleasure-loving spirits of the time were thoroughly antique and uninspired by
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...
ideas.
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...
designed the composition of the story of
Amor and Psyche
Cupid and Psyche is a story originally from ''Metamorphoses'' (also called ''The Golden Ass''), written in the 2nd century AD by Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (or Platonicus). The tale concerns the overcoming of obstacles to the love between Psyc ...
as a continuation of the
Galatea. On a plate-glass vault Peruzzi painted the
firmament, with the
zodiac
The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The pa ...
al signs, the
planet
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...
s, and other heavenly bodies. The interior room has a striking use of illusionistic perspectiv
Other work
Peruzzi had produced a mosaic ceiling for the church of
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome; the mosaic depicts the Saviour. Other paintings ascribed to him are to be found in
Sant'Onofrio and
San Pietro in Montorio
San Pietro in Montorio (Saint Peter on the Golden Mountain) is a church in Rome, Italy, which includes in its courtyard the ''Tempietto'', a small commemorative '' martyrium'' (tomb) built by Donato Bramante.
History
The Church of San Pietro ...
. That Peruzzi improved as time went on is evident in his later works, e.g., the "Madonna with Saints" in
Santa Maria della Pace at Rome, and the fresco of ''Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl'' in
Santa Maria in Portico a Fontegiusta at Siena. As our master interested himself in the decorative art also, he exercised a strong influence in this direction, not only by his own decorative paintings but also by furnishing designs for craftsmen of various kinds. While primarily known as an architect, one of his great loves was drawing. His extraordinary pen and ink drawings for the basilica of St. Peter's are preserved in the Prints and Drawings Collection of the
Uffizi Gallery
The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian muse ...
in Florence. He was especially well known for his extraordinary studies of antique buildings, as seen in The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (1502–1503) in the
Allen Memorial Art Museum
The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art.
Overview
The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed a ...
.
His final architectural masterpiece, the
Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne (1535) located now on the 19th-century Corso Vittorio Emanuele, is well known for its curving facade, ingenious planning, and architecturally rich interior. The exterior details display a
Mannerist-style.
He left drawings to a pupil,
Sebastiano Serlio, who used them in several of his ''Books of Architecture'', published in Venice beginning in the early 1530s.
[Sebastiano Serlio, Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture: Books I-V of Tutte l'opere d'architettura et prospetiva, trans. Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press: 1996).]
References
*
External links
Web Gallery of Art: Perspective View of the Sala delle Prospettive''Italian Paintings: Sienese and Central Italian Schools'' a collection catalog containing information about Peruzzi and his works (see index; plates 86–107).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Peruzzi, Baldassare
1481 births
1536 deaths
15th-century Italian architects
15th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
16th-century Italian painters
Painters from Siena
Italian Renaissance painters
Italian Mannerist architects
Burials at the Pantheon, Rome
16th-century Italian architects
Architects of Roman Catholic churches
Catholic painters
Catholic decorative artists