Fray Pedro Bedón Díaz de Pineda ( – ) was a South American

Dominican friar The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

and painter of the

Quito school The Quito School (''Escuela Quiteña'') is a Latin American artistic tradition that constitutes essentially the whole of the professional artistic output developed in the territory of the Royal Audience of Quito – from Pasto and Popayán in t ...

Biography

Fray Pedro Bedón was born in 1556 in Quito, then part of the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru ( es, Virreinato del Perú, links=no) was a Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed fro ...

(present-day

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ' ...

). He entered the novitiate of the Dominican order at the age of fourteen, completed his studies in

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

, and was then appointed professor of philosophy in the college of that city. He studied painting under Italian artist

Bernardo Bitti Democrito Bernardo Bitti (1548–1610) was an Italian Jesuit priest and painter. He introduced Mannerism to Peru, where he went on a Jesuit mission after having studied in Rome. On his way to Peru, Bitti traveled through Spain, where he bec ...

in Lima. In his early life he had cultivated painting, and when afterward he had recovered from a dangerous malady, he resolved to devote his leisure to painting pictures of the Blessed Virgin. Several of his works are in the convents of Quito and Santa Fe, and are said to justify the title his countrymen gave him of the

Fra Angelico Fra Angelico (born Guido di Pietro; February 18, 1455) was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance, described by Vasari in his '' Lives of the Artists'' as having "a rare and perfect talent".Giorgio Vasari, ''Lives of the Artists''. Pengu ...

of Ecuador. He founded the convent of La Peña in Quito, and then went to Rio-Bomba, where he founded another convent, but returned to Quito on learning that he had been elected prior of La Peña. In 1619 he was chosen provincial of his order, which office he held until his death in Quito in 1621.

Biography

References

Further reading