Pier Maria Baldi (circa 1630 - 9 November 1686) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

painter and architect.

Biography

Born around 1630 in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

, Pier Maria Baldi trained under

Baldassare Franceschini Baldassare Franceschini, called Il Volterrano after his birth place Volterra and, to distinguish him from Daniele da Volterra, Ricciarelli, Il Volterrano Giuniore (16116 January 1689) was an Italian late Baroque painter and draughtsman active p ...

, known as ''il Volterrano''. He worked along with fellow pupil

Cosimo Ulivelli Cosimo Ulivelli (1625–1705) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Florence. He was a pupil of the painter Baldassare Franceschini Baldassare Franceschini, called Il Volterrano after his birth place Volterra and, t ...

in Franceschini's projects, decorating rooms in the Palazzo Giraldi, now Taddei, on via de' Ginori. He had a brother Romualdo Baldi, who was a friend of Franceschini. In 1667 the

Grand Duke Ferdinando II Ferdinando II de' Medici (14 July 1610 – 23 May 1670) was grand duke of Tuscany from 1621 to 1670. He was the eldest son of Cosimo II de' Medici and Maria Maddalena of Austria. Remembered by his contemporaries as a man of culture and sci ...

recommended Pier Maria to

Bernini Gian Lorenzo (or Gianlorenzo) Bernini (, ; ; Italian Giovanni Lorenzo; 7 December 1598 – 28 November 1680) was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor ...

and

Pietro da Cortona Pietro da Cortona (; 1 November 1596 or 159716 May 1669) was an Italian Baroque painter and architect. Along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, he was one of the key figures in the emergence of Roman ...

in Rome. From September 1668 to March 1669 he was a chamberlain to the future Cosimo III de Medici, while the latter traveled through Europe, including France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, England, the Netherlands and Belgium. He documented painted and drawn

vedute A ''veduta'' (; : ''vedute'') is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, more often, print of a cityscape or some other vista. The painters of ''vedute'' are referred to as ''vedutisti''. Origins This genre of landscape originated ...

of this trip, conserved in two volumes in the

Biblioteca Laurenziana The Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana or BML) is a historic library in Florence, Italy, containing more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books. Built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze ...

of Florence. This is a fascinating collection of the skylines of European towns in the 17th century. Among his painted figure pieces are a ''Madonna of the Rosary and Saint Domenic'' (circa 1684) for the main altar of San Domenico al Maglio (now belonging to the Scuola di Sanità Militare) and a lunette frescoed with the ''Baptism of St Augustine'' in the first cloister of Santo Spirito.

Work as an architect

He had trained as an architect under

Ferdinando Tacca Ferdinando Tacca (1619–1686) was an Italian people, Italian sculptor and architect, active during the Baroque art, Baroque period in Florence. Biography He was the son of Pietro Tacca, a sculptor active for the Medici in Florence. After Pie ...

, and joined Tacca's team enlarging the

Palazzo Medici Riccardi The Palazzo Medici, also called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi after the later family that acquired and expanded it, is a 15th-century Renaissance palace in Florence, Italy. It was built for the Medici family, who dominated the politics of the Repu ...

, which had been purchased by Gabriello Riccardi in 1659. From 1670 to 1684 Baldi designed for him the northward extension of the palazzo along Via Larga. The lobbying of Riccardi, helped obtain in 1670 the appointment of Baldi in 1670 to chief architect to the court of Grand Duke Cosimo III. In 1673 Baldi designed the Fountain in Piazza Santa Croce. He added the final touches to Tacca's

Cappella dei Principi The Cappella dei Principi ('Chapel of the Princes') is the mausoleum of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Grand Dukes of Tuscany and their families and is part of the museum complex of the Medici Chapels, adjacent to the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Floren ...

in San Lorenzo. In 1679 he designed for the Grand Duke the church of Santi Quirico, Lucia e Pietro d'Alcantara and its attached convent of the Reformed Friars Minor. The church is near the Medici Villa dell’Ambrogiana and connected to it by a passageway. In 1680, Baldi is recorded as superintendent of the buildings and fortifications of

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn ...

. He was buried in the cloister of the above convent.Palazzo Medici biography

Notes

*Wikimedia commons contains Baldi vedute of

Alcalá la Real Alcalá la Real is a city in the province of Jaén, Spain. According to the 2024 INE figures, the city had a population of 21,581. Geography Alcalá la Real is situated from the provincial capital, Jaén, and from Granada, on the slopes of L ...

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ), officially the City of Coimbra (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2021 census was 140,796, in an area of . The fourth-largest agglomerated urban area in Po ...

(above), Montilla, Spain, Las Cinco Llagas, Lisbon,

Alcalá de Henares Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish municipality of the Community of Madrid. Housing is primarily located on the right (north) bank of the Henares River, Henares. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated Municip ...

Guadalajara, Spain Guadalajara ( , ) is a city and municipality in Spain, located in the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. It is the capital of the Province of Guadalajara. Guadalajara lies on the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at roughly me ...

(above),

Pontevedra Pontevedra (, ) is a city in the autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. It is the capital of both the ''Pontevedra (comarca), Comarca'' and Province of Pontevedra, and the capital of the Rías Baixas. It is als ...

(above),

Setúbal Setúbal ( , , ; ), officially the City of Setúbal (), is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the entire municipality in 2014 was 118,166, occupying an area of . The city itself had 89,303 inhabitants in 2001. It lies withi ...

and

Rates Rate or rates may refer to: Finance * Rate (company), an American residential mortgage company formerly known as Guaranteed Rate * Rates (tax), a type of taxation system in the United Kingdom used to fund local government * Exchange rate, rate ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldi, Pier Maria 1630s births 1686 deaths 17th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Painters from Florence 17th-century Italian architects Architects from Florence Italian Baroque architects Italian engravers