Angelo Everardi - Crucifixion of the ten thousand Martyrs on Mount Ararat

Angelo Everardi (5 August 1647 – 1678)Maria Adelaide Baroncelli, ''Jan de Herdt e le origini del Fiammenghino'', Saggi e Memorie di storia dell'arte Saggi e Memorie di storia dell'arte Vol. 4 (1965), pp. 7, 9-24, 133-141 (26 pages) was a painter and printmaker active in

Brescia Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo. ...

in the second half of the 17th century. No paintings have been attributed to him with certainty. He is reported to have been a painter of battle scenes,

Bambocciate The ''Bamboccianti'' were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherland ...

, i.e. low life genre scenes as well as of

history painting History painting is a genre in painting defined by its subject matter rather than any artistic style or specific period. History paintings depict a moment in a narrative story, most often (but not exclusively) Greek and Roman mythology and Bible ...

s.EVERARDI Angelo
Enciclopedia Bresciana

Life

Angelo Everardi was born in

as the son of a Giovanni (Joan) from

Sittard Sittard (; ) is a city in the Netherlands, situated in the southernmost province of Limburg. The town is part of the municipality of Sittard-Geleen and has almost 37.500 inhabitants in 2016. In its east, Sittard borders the German municipali ...

in Flanders (now in the Netherlands) and Vittoria, his second wife. This Flemish origin explains his name 'il Fiammenghino' or ''Fiammenghino''.Angiolo Everardi
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

His father was a "maestro di ruote di archibugio" ("master of the wheels of the arquebus") indicating that he was likely a maker of guns. He studied in his home town with the Flemish painter

Jan de Herdt Jan de Herdt, in Italy also called Il fiammingoVariations of name: Jan Daniel de Herdt, Jan de Herde, Jan de Hert, Giovanni de Hert, Giovanni Darto, Giovanni Darto Fiamingo, Joannes de Hart, de HerdeMiroslav Kindl, ''Jan de Herdt, Nizozemí, Itá ...

who was working in Italy at the time and Francesco Monti (il Brescianino). He then went to Rome to further his studies. Here he acquainted himself in particular with the battle scenes of

Jacques Courtois Jacques Courtois or Giacomo Cortese, called il Borgognone or le Bourguignon (12 ?December 162114 November 1676) was a Franche-Comtois–Italian painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He was mainly active in Rome and Florence and became known as the ...

. After two years in Rome, he returned to Brescia, having to provide for his family. Among his pupils were

Pompeo Ghiti Pompeo Ghitti (1631–1703 or 1704) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in and in towns surrounding Brescia. Biography He was born in the village of Marone on the shores of Lake Iseo, near Brescia. He was a pupil of t ...

and Faustino Bocchi (1659–1742). Bocchi painted both battles and genre scenes of dwarves and occasionally other mythical beasts. He died in Brescia in 1678.

Work

No paintings have been attributed to him with certainty. He is reported to have been a painter of battle scenes and

, i.e. low life genre scenes as well as of history paintings. He was highly respected by his contemporaries and his battle scenes were praised as being on the same level as those of Courtois. However, his early death led to his work falling into oblivion. The only work that can be attributed with certainty to the artist is a print depicting the ''Crucifixion of the ten thousand Martyrs on Mount Ararat'', which was published in the book ''Il glorioso martirio dei diecimila soldati crocefissi nel monte Ararat dell'Armenia'' published in Brescia in 1674. The print is signed "Angelus Everardus". The booklet was a devotional libretto with songs on the theme of the

Ten thousand martyrs Ten thousand martyrs may refer to the ten thousand martyred Fathers of the deserts and caves of Scete by Theophilus of Alexandria or to the ten thousand martyrs of Mount Ararat who were, according to a medieval legend, Roman soldiers who, led by S ...

. This is the story about the 10,000 martyrs who were, according to a medieval legend, Roman soldiers who, led by Saint Acacius, converted to Christianity and were crucified on Mount Ararat in Armenia by order of the Roman emperor. The print gives a highly dynamic impression with the figures moving in a geometric and atmospheric perspective space. In the foreground a knight giving orders creates additional dynamic movement in the painting. Possibly because of the similarity of the subject and the proximity in time, many scholars attributed to Everardi the altarpiece of the ''Crucifixion of the ten thousand martyrs'' placed on the second altar on the right of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in Brescia.Sara Bizzotto Passamani, ''Angelo Maria Everardi''
in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 43 (1993) M. A. Baroncelli rejected the attribution based on the weaknesses of the altarpiece such as a crowding of the nude figures, a coldness and monotony of color and compositional failures in the lower part of the canvas. Some art historians have suggested that Everardi should be identified with the artist referred to as

Maestro della Fertilità dell'Uovo Maestro della Fertilità dell'Uovo or Master of the Fertility of the Egg is the name given to a yet to be identified painter active in the second half of the 17th and early 18th century in Brescia. The name is based on a work entitled '' La ferti ...

who painted grotesque scenes. The arguments for this suggestion are that Everardi as a Flemish painter was familiar with the Northern tradition of the grotesque and that he trained Faustino Bocchi who is known for his grotesque scenes.Maestro della Fertilità dell'Uovo, ''Grotesque Scene with Animals and Stylised Figures No. 1''
at The Ruzhnikov Collection

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Everardi, Angelo 1647 births 1678 deaths Artists from Brescia Italian Baroque painters Italian battle painters 17th-century Italian painters Italian male painters