Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’: Bernardino Poccetti and the Historiography of Florentine Painting during the Late Renaissance
- 1 ‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’: Filippo Baldinucci’s Biography of Bernardino Poccetti
- 2 ‘Le prime cose lodevoli molto’: Bernardino Poccetti’s Early Work and the Frescoes from the Life of Saint Dominic in the Chiostro Grande, Santa Maria Novella
- 3 ‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia extructa est’: Bernardino Poccetti and the Decoration of the Canigiani Chapel in Santa Felicita
- 4 ‘Miracula et alia id genus’: Bernardino Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Church of San Lorenzo at the Certosa del Galluzzo
- Color Plates
- 5 ‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’: Bernardino Poccetti and the Sixteenth-Century Decoration of Santa Maria del Carmine
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - ‘Le prime cose lodevoli molto’: Bernardino Poccetti’s Early Work and the Frescoes from the Life of Saint Dominic in the Chiostro Grande, Santa Maria Novella
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 February 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: ‘Il primo huomo da dipingere in fresco, che sia in questi paesi’: Bernardino Poccetti and the Historiography of Florentine Painting during the Late Renaissance
- 1 ‘Grandemente inclinato all’Arte del Disegno’: Filippo Baldinucci’s Biography of Bernardino Poccetti
- 2 ‘Le prime cose lodevoli molto’: Bernardino Poccetti’s Early Work and the Frescoes from the Life of Saint Dominic in the Chiostro Grande, Santa Maria Novella
- 3 ‘Locum ecclesiae designavit, quae Ioannis et uxoris pecunia extructa est’: Bernardino Poccetti and the Decoration of the Canigiani Chapel in Santa Felicita
- 4 ‘Miracula et alia id genus’: Bernardino Poccetti’s Frescoes in the Church of San Lorenzo at the Certosa del Galluzzo
- Color Plates
- 5 ‘L’inventore di dipingere tutte le muraglie della nostra chiesa’: Bernardino Poccetti and the Sixteenth-Century Decoration of Santa Maria del Carmine
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract: This chapter explores the artistic origins of Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti, 1553–1612), from his early days as a painter of sgraffito facades to his first efforts in monumental narrative frescoes. These images, painted in the Chiostro Grande at Santa Maria Novella, depict scenes from the life of Saint Dominic. In his paintings, Poccetti demonstrated his mastery of color and composition and his ability to create dramatic images. In the process, he updated the images to make them more relevant to a sixteenth-century spectator. Close readings of these paintings show how Poccetti, his patrons, and the Dominican friars would have seen and understood the events of Dominic's life as examples to be emulated in their own period of religious crisis.
Keywords: Bernardino Barbatelli (called Poccetti); Saint Dominic; Santa Maria Novella, Florence; Dominican Order; religious reform
Not much is known about the years Bernardino Poccetti (1553–1612) spent growing up in Michele Tosini's (1503–1577) shop. Filippo Baldinucci (1625–1696) claimed that the painter stayed with Tosini for a long time, but he did not provide any precise dates that would flesh out Poccetti's activities during this period. The records show that Poccetti paid dues to the Accademia del Disegno as early as 1570. A few years later, in 1574, he rented a workshop on Via del Palagio, where he remained until 1578. These slight archival references suggest that it was in the early 1570s that Poccetti, who would have been twenty years old in 1573, left Tosini's bottega and struck out on his own. If Bernardino did enter Tosini's workshop when he was seven or eight years old, which would have been around the year 1560, then he would have been in his late teens when he set out to establish his own career after having spent around ten years working alongside Tosini. This span of time is longer than the usual apprenticeship of six or seven years. It appears, however, that Girolamo Macchietti (1535–1592) spent a similarly long period of time as an apprentice to Tosini, so it may have been a typical practice of that particular workshop. At seven or eight years of age, Poccetti would have been two or three years younger than the typical apprentice—a youthfulness that Baldinucci emphasized in the painter's biography.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Bernardino Poccetti and the Art of Religious Painting at the End of the Florentine Renaissance , pp. 79 - 130Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2023