Matteo Zaccolini (April 1574 – 13 July 1630) was an Italian painter, priest and author of the late

Mannerist Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...

and early

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

periods. He was a mathematical theorist on perspective. He is also called "Zacolini" and "Zocolino".Bell, Janis C. "Zaccolini, Matteo." ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press, accessed 6 April 2014.

Works

Born in

Cesena Cesena (; rgn, Cisêna) is a city and ''comune'' in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, served by Autostrada A14, and located near the Apennine Mountains, about from the Adriatic Sea. The total population is 97,137. History Cesena was o ...

, he was a pupil of the local painter Francesco Masini, and became a

Theatine The Theatines officially named the Congregation of Clerics Regular ( la, Ordo Clericorum Regularium), abreviated CR, is a Catholic order of clerics regular of Pontifical Right for men founded by Archbishop Gian Pietro Carafa in Sept. 14, 1524. I ...

priest. He was a protégé of Cardinal

Vincenzo Giustiniani Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani (13 September 1564 – 27 December 1637) was an aristocratic Italian banker, art collector and intellectual of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, known today largely for the Giustiniani art collection, assembled ...

, who was renowned for his patronage of painters, including

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a ...

and

Domenichino Domenico Zampieri (, ; October 21, 1581 – April 6, 1641), known by the diminutive Domenichino (, ) after his shortness, was an Italian Baroque painter of the Bolognese School of painters. Life Domenichino was born in Bologna, son of a sho ...

. Zaccolini collaborated with

Baldassare Croce Baldassare Croce (Bologna, 1558–November 8, 1628) was an Italian painter, active during the late-Mannerist period, active mainly in and around Rome. Biography He trained in Bologna, and moved to Rome by 1581. Known as a prolific academic paint ...

with the

quadratura Illusionistic ceiling painting, which includes the techniques of perspective ''di sotto in sù'' and ''quadratura'', is the tradition in Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo art in which ''trompe-l'œil'', perspective tools such as foreshortening, an ...

frescoes in the church of

Santa Susanna The Church of Saint Susanna at the Baths of Diocletian ( it, Chiesa di Santa Susanna alle Terme di Diocleziano) is a Roman Catholic parish church located on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, Italy. There has been a titular church associated to its site ...

, where he painted the ''

trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

'' columns. In collaboration with Giuseppe Agellio and

Cristoforo Roncalli Cristoforo Roncalli (c. 1552–1626) was an Italian mannerist painter. He was one of the three painters known as ''Pomarancio'' or ''Il Pomarancio''. Life Roncalli was born in Pomarance, a town near Volterra. His training occurred in ...

, he painted in

San Silvestro al Quirinale San Silvestro al Quirinale (or ''St. Sylvester on Quirinal Hill'') is a historic church in central Rome, Italy. It is located near Via XXIV Maggio corner with Via Mazzarino, a few blocks south of the Piazza del Quirinale. History The first ment ...

. He joined the Theatine order in 1603. From then on, he worked solely in Theatine projects, in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and

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 ...

. He is best known for a four volume treatise, written 1618–1622, on the theory of painting with titles: ''De Colori'', ''Prospettiva del Colore'', ''Prospettiva lineale'', and ''Della Descrittione dell'Ombre prodotte da corpi opachi rettilinei''. These works, while not in general circulation, gained him renown among eclectic circles in Rome. In 1666, the historian and fellow Theatine Giuseppe Silos described Zaccolini as one of the "Geniuses of our order and most admirable men of his age".

Bellori Giovanni Pietro Bellori (15 January 1613 – 19 February 1696), also known as Giovan Pietro Bellori or Gian Pietro Bellori, was an Italian painter and antiquarian, but, more famously, a prominent biographer of artists of the 17th century, equiva ...

described him as a master of perspective and optics, and as having instructed

, Gagliardi, Circignani, and Cavaliere d’Arpino among others. Zaccolini was a fervent admirer of

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...

. According to Zaccolini's early biographer

Cassiano dal Pozzo Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588 – 22 October 1657) was an Italian scholar and patron of arts. The secretary of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, he was an antiquary in the classicizing circle of Rome, and a long-term friend and patron of Nicolas Poussin, w ...

, the earliest version of the manuscript was written in

mirror-script Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes u ...

which, like the manuscript's content, revealed the influence of the writings of Leonardo.Bell, Janis C
"Zaccolini and Leonardo's Manuscript A"
Retrieved 6 April 2014.

Notes

References

*

*

's Copy of the Zaccolini Manuscripts, by Janis C. Bell, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 1988) Volume 51; pages 103-125. *http://www.repubblica.it/repubblicarts/giustiniani/testo.html *Baglioni's ''Vite''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zaccolini, Matteo 1574 births 1630 deaths People from Cesena 16th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 17th-century Italian painters Italian art historians Italian male non-fiction writers Italian Baroque painters Trompe-l'œil artists