Luigi Baccio del Bianco or Baccio del Bianco (31 October 1604 – July 1657) was an Italian architect, engineer, scenic designer and painter.

Biography

He was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

where his father, Cosimo del Bianco, sold cloth to the nobility for use in festivals, tournaments, and theatrical performances. He studied painting under Giovanni Bilivert from 1612 to 1620. Baccio's work and letters also show the influence exerted on the painter by Vincenzio Bocaccio of

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 ...

, who came to Florence, delegated as one of the best students of the architect and painter Lodovico Cigoli. He also apprenticed under

Giulio Parigi Giulio Parigi (6 April 1571 – 13 July 1635) was an Italian architect and designer. He was the main member of a family of architects and designers working for the Grand Ducal court of the Medici. His father, Alfonso Parigi the Elder, was an ...

Bratislava - Vienna – Prague - Milan

In 1620 he visited ''Germania'' and travelled to the Slovakia, where he assisted

Giovanni de Galliano Pieroni Giovanni de Galliano Pieroni (1586–1654) was a military engineer specialized in erecting fortifications, architect, mathematician and astronomer who gained particular fame in his day as also as author of horoscopes. Early in his life, he be ...

(1586–1654) in construction of a fortress in

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

. On his return he decorated several houses, and painted for churches and theatres. In 1622 he went to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, and the same year both went on to

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, where he performed extensive work in

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

es of the

Wallenstein Palace Wallenstein Palace ( cs, Valdštejnský palác) is a Baroque palace in Malá Strana, Prague, that served as a residence for Imperial Generalissimo Albrecht von Wallenstein and now houses the Senate of the Czech Republic. History The original ...

: Audience hall, St. Wenceslas chapel, Ovidius' corridor, Astronomical corridor and sala terrena, some with help of assistants. He did not stay there permanently, as there is evidence he lived in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

shortly thereafter and was back in Florence in 1625.

Milan - Florence

In 1636 he projected the St Ignatius church for

Győr Győr ( , ; german: Raab, links=no; names of European cities in different languages: E-H#G, names in other languages) is the main city of northwest Hungary, the capital of Győr-Moson-Sopron County and Western Transdanubia, Western Transdanubia ...

. Then he stayed in Florence and painted illusive frescoes (open doors and portraits) for The House Buonarotti (''Casa Buonnarotti''). Then he decorated with frescoes the Palazzo di San Clemente in Florence and Torregalli castle in Tuscany. In danger of war in 1642 he turned back to projects of fortresses (

Livorno Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronou ...

Prato Prato ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies in the north east of Tuscany, at the foot of Monte Retaia, elevation , the last peak in the Calvana chain. With more than 200,000 i ...

Pistoia Pistoia (, is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of a province of the same name, located about west and north of Florence and is crossed by the Ombrone Pistoiese, a tributary of the River Arno. It is a typi ...

etc.).

Madrid - Buon Retiro

In 1651 he was sent to Spain by Grand Duke

Ferdinando II de' Medici 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. He was remembered by his contemporaries as a man of culture a ...

to fulfill King Philip IV's request for designer for court performances. His work at the Spanish court included scenes and theatrical machinery for ''La fiera, el rayo y la piedra'' in 1652 and ''Andrómeda y Perseo'' in 1653 (both plays by

Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño (, ; ; 17 January 160025 May 1681) was a Spanish dramatist, poet, writer and knight of the Order of Santiago. He is known as one of the most distinguished Baroque ...

). He died at

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

in 1657. In Spain he was known as Bartolomeo del Blanco, since ''Baccio'' is an Italian

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

for ''Bartolommeo'' or ''Bartolomeo'', while ''Bianco'' and ''Blanco'' are Italian-Spanish equivalents of "white". Accordingly, he shows up as such in certain sources.

References

Bibliography

* "Science in Contact with Art: Astronomical Symbolics of the Wallenstein Palace in Prague", Alena Hadravová (Research Centre for the History of Science and Humanities of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Charles University), Petr Hadrava (Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences), published in: ''Science in contact at the beginning of scientific revolution'', Ed. J. Zamrzlová, ''Acta historiae rerum naturalium necnon technicarum'', New series, Vol. 8 (2004), pp. 173 – 210.
html version with "Giovanni Pieroni" color-highlighted

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baccio del Blanco, Luigi 1604 births 1656 deaths 17th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Painters from Florence Italian Baroque painters Italian scenic designers Italian Baroque architects