Francesco Primaticcio (April 30, 1504 – 1570) was an Italian
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 Ita ...
painter,
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
and
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
who spent most of his career in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
.
Biography
Born in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
, he trained under
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano (, ; – 1 November 1546), is the acquired name of Giulio Pippi, who was an Italian painter and architect. He was a pupil of Raphael, and his stylistic deviations from High Renaissance classicism help define the sixteenth-cent ...
in
Mantua
Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name.
In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...
and became a pupil of
Innocenzo da Imola
Innocenzo (di Pietro) Francucci (c. 1490 – c. 1550), generally known as Innocenzo da Imola, was an Italian painter and draftsman.
Biography
The son of a goldsmith named Pietro, he was born in Imola sometime around 1490. After presuma ...
, executing decorations at the
Palazzo Te
or is a palace in the suburbs of Mantua, Italy. It is a fine example of the mannerist style of architecture, and the acknowledged masterpiece of Giulio Romano. Although formed in Italian, the usual name in English of Palazzo del Te is not that ...
before securing a position in the court of
Francis I of France
Francis I (french: François Ier; frm, Francoys; 12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and Louise of Savoy. He succeeded his first cousin on ...
in 1532.
Together with
Rosso Fiorentino
Giovanni Battista di Jacopo (8 March 1495 in Gregorian style, or 1494 according to the calculation of times in Florence where the year began on 25 March – 14 November 1540), known as Rosso Fiorentino (meaning "Red Florentine" in Italian) ...
he was one of the leading artists to work at the
Chateau Fontainebleau
Palace of Fontainebleau (; ) or Château de Fontainebleau, located southeast of the center of Paris, in the commune of Fontainebleau, is one of the largest French royal châteaux. The medieval castle and subsequent palace served as a residence ...
(where he is grouped with the so-called "First
School of Fontainebleau
The School of Fontainbleau (french: École de Fontainebleau) (c. 1530 – c. 1610) refers to two periods of artistic production in France during the late Renaissance centered on the royal Palace of Fontainebleau that were crucial in forming the No ...
") spending much of his life there. Following Rosso's death in 1540, Primaticcio took control of the artistic direction at Fontainebleau, furnishing the painters and stuccators of his team, such as
Nicolò dell'Abate Nicolò () is an Italian male given name. Another variation is Niccolò, most common in Tuscany. It may refer to:
* Nicolò Albertini, statesman
* Nicolò Amati, luthier
* Nicolò Barella, Italian footballer
* Nicolò Barattieri, Italian enginee ...
, with designs. He made
cartoons for
tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads ma ...
-weavers and, like all 16th-century court artists, was called upon to design elaborate ephemeral decorations for
masque
The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio (a public version of the masque was the pageant). A masq ...
s and fêtes, which survive only in preparatory drawings and, sometimes, engravings. Francis I trusted his eye and sent him back to Italy on buying trips in 1540 and again in 1545.
In Rome, part of Primaticcio's commission was to take casts of the best
Roman sculpture
The study of Roman sculpture is complicated by its relation to Greek sculpture. Many examples of even the most famous Greek sculptures, such as the Apollo Belvedere and Barberini Faun, are known only from Roman Imperial or Hellenistic "copies". A ...
s in the papal collections, some of which were cast in bronze to decorate the
parterre
A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...
s at Fontainebleau.
[The project, which brought a first virtual confrontation with Roman sculpture to French patrons and artists, is surveyed in detail by S. Pressouyre, "Les fontes de Primatice à Fontainebleau", ''Bulletin monumental'' 127 (1969), pp. 223-38. See also Thomas Clouet, "Fontainebleau de 1541 à 1547. Pour une relecture des Comptes des Bâtiments du roi", ''Bulletin monumental'' 170 (2012), pp. 195-234, in which article a precise chronology of the casting of these famous bronzes is established]
english summary
. The precious moulds, at the instigation of Leone Leoni
:''For the early 17th-century composer, see Leone Leoni (composer)''.
Leone Leoni (ca. 1509 – 22 July 1590) was an Italian sculptor of international outlook who travelled in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Leoni is r ...
were sent to the Habsburg court in the Spanish Netherland in 1550 and, after serving to make a set of stucco casts for Charles V's daughter Mary of Hungary
Mary, also known as Maria of Anjou (, , ; 137117 May 1395), reigned as Queen of Hungary and Croatia (officially 'king') between 1382 and 1385, and from 1386 until her death. She was the daughter of Louis the Great, King of Hungary and Poland ...
, Queen-governess of the Netherlands at Binche (where they were destroyed by Henry II's troops in 1554) they were probably forwarded to Leoni in Milan (Bruce Boucher, "Leone Leoni and Primaticcio's Moulds of Antique Sculpture", ''The Burlington Magazine'' 123 No. 934 (January 1981), pp. 23-26).
Primaticcio retained his position as court painter to Francis' heirs,
Henry II and
Francis II. His masterpiece, the ''Salle d'Hercule'' at Fontainebleau, occupied him and his team from the 1530s to 1559.
Primaticcio's crowded Mannerist compositions and his long-legged canon of beauty influenced French art for the rest of the century.
Primaticcio turned to architecture towards the end of his life, his greatest work being the
Valois Chapel
Catherine de' Medici's building projects included the Valois chapel at Saint-Denis, the Tuileries Palace, and the Hôtel de la Reine in Paris, and extensions to the château of Chenonceau, near Blois. Born in 1519 in Florence to an Italian fa ...
at the
Abbey of Saint-Denis
The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building ...
, although this was not completed until after his death and was destroyed in 1719.
Gallery
Image:Francesco_Primaticcio_001.jpg , Alexander tames Bucephalus
Bucephalus or Bucephalas (; grc, Βουκεφάλας, ; – June 326 BC) was the horse of Alexander the Great, and one of the most famous horses of classical antiquity.
Ancient historical accounts state that Bucephalus' breed was tha ...
Image:Francesco_Primaticcio_003.jpg , The rape of Helena, 1530-1539
File:Chaalis voute abside.JPG, Ceiling at Chaalis Abbey
Chaalis Abbey (french: Abbaye de Chaalis) was a French Cistercian abbey north of Paris, at Fontaine-Chaalis, near Ermenonville, now in Oise.
History
It was founded in 1136 by Louis VI of France. There had previously been a Benedictine monaste ...
File:Chaalis fresque annonciation.JPG , '' Annunciation'' at Chaalis
File:Apollo, Pan, and a putto blowing a horn, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET MM20346.jpg, Apollo, Pan, and a putto blowing a horn, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau.
File:Three Muses and a Gesturing Putto, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET DP821337.jpg, Three Muses and a Gesturing Putto, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau
File:Three Muses and a Putto with a Lyre, a cruciform composition, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Gallery of Ulysses (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET DP821276.jpg, Three Muses and a Putto with a Lyre, a cruciform composition, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Gallery of Ulysses (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau
File:Three Muses and a Putto with Cymbals, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET DP821339.jpg, Three Muses and a Putto with Cymbals, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau
File:Hercules, Bacchus, Pan, and Saturn(?), from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET DP821346.jpg, Hercules, Bacchus, Pan, and Saturn(?), from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau
File:Ceres Seated on Clouds with Two Goddesses and Two Putti, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET DP821331.jpg, Ceres Seated on Clouds with Two Goddesses and Two Putti, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau
File:Pluto, Neptune, Minerva and Apollo, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET DP821333.jpg, Pluto, Neptune, Minerva and Apollo, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau
File:Venus and Cupid, Two Other Goddesses, and a Putto, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau MET DP821328.jpg, Venus and Cupid, Two Other Goddesses, and a Putto, from a series of eight compositions after Francesco Primaticcio's designs for the ceiling of the Ulysses Gallery (destroyed 1738-39) at Fontainebleau
File:Ulysses and His Companions Fighting the Cicones Before the City of Ismaros, Study for a Destroyed Fresco in the Galerie d'Ulysee, Chateau de Fontainebleau MET 176716.jpg, Ulysses and His Companions Fighting the Cicones Before the City of Ismaros, Study for a Destroyed Fresco in the Galerie d'Ulysee, Chateau de Fontainebleau
Notes
References
''The Oxford Dictionary of Art'',
External links
Entry in 'Art-cyclopedia'Château de Fontainebleau (in English)
''The engravings of Giorgio Ghisi'' a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Francesco Primaticcio (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Primaticcio
1504 births
1570 deaths
Artists from Bologna
16th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
Italian Mannerist painters
Italian Mannerist architects
Italian Mannerist sculptors
French Mannerist painters
French architects
French sculptors