Pietro da Cortona

orig. Pietro Berrettini

(born Nov. 1, 1596, Cortona, Tuscany—died May 16, 1669, Rome, Papal States) Italian painter, architect, and decorator. The son of a stonemason, he was apprenticed to a painter in Florence. His first major work, a series of frescoes in the small church of Santa Bibiana in Rome (1624–26), was commissioned by Pope Urban VIII, and the patronage of the pope's family, the Barberinis, advanced Pietro's career. The rich exuberance of those Baroque frescoes was a prelude to his best-known work, the large ceiling fresco Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power (1632–39) in the Barberini Palace. Here he demonstrated his mastery of illusion, for the centre of the vault appears open to the sky and the figures seem to hover in space. He provided a series of frescoes for the Pitti Palace in Florence. Also a master architect, his greatest architectural accomplishment is the church of Santi Martina e Luca in Rome (1634), the first Baroque church built as a unitary whole.

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