The Accademia degli Incamminati (Italian for "Academy of Those who are Making Progress" or "Academy of the Journeying") was one of the first art academies in Italy, founded in 1582 in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= 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 150 different na ...

. It was founded as the Accademia dei Desiderosi ("Academy of the Desirous") and sometimes known as the Accademia dei Carracci after its founders the three Carracci cousins: Agostino, Annibale and

Ludovico Ludovico () is an Italian masculine given name. It is sometimes spelled Lodovico. The feminine equivalent is Ludovica. Persons with the name Ludovico Given name * Ludovico D'Aragona (1876–1961), Italian socialist politician * Ludovico Ariosto ...

. Annibale headed the institution thanks to his strong personality. The birth of this and other academies indicated artists' desire to be seen on the same level as poets and musicians, rather than as just artisans and the Accademia degli Incamminati soon providing a meeting space for other intellectuals, such as the doctor Melchiorre Zoppio and the astronomer Giovanni Antonio Magini, who both frequented it. On its foundation, its members soon chose a heraldic emblem for the institution, made up of a

celestial sphere In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an abstract sphere that has an arbitrarily large radius and is concentric to Earth. All objects in the sky can be conceived as being projected upon the inner surface of the celestial sphe ...

with

Ursa Minor Ursa Minor (Latin: 'Lesser Bear', contrasting with Ursa Major), also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation located in the far northern sky. As with the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, ...

at its centre and below it the motto ''Contentione Perfectus''. It was set up as a private institution of artists with the aim of providing a comprehensive training in the practice and theory both of art and of other activities then considered to be of little importance. In the Accademia artists were allowed to draw the nude from live models, which was prohibited by the

Counter Reformation The Counter-Reformation (), also called the Catholic Reformation () or the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to the Protestant Reformation. It began with the Council of Trent (1545–1563) a ...

Catholic church. Considered "the first major art school based on life drawing", the ''Accademia'' was the model for later art schools throughout Europe. The style the new academy was aiming for was "an eclectic ideal", taking (in the words of a sonnet from Agostino Carracci to

Niccolò dell'Abbate Niccolò dell'Abbate, sometimes Nicolò and Abate (1509 or 15121571) was a Mannerist Italian painter in fresco and oils. He was of the Emilian school, and was part of the team of artists called the School of Fontainebleau that introduced the I ...

) "from

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual ...

a feminine grace of line, from

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was ins ...

a muscular force, from

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

strong colours and from

Correggio Antonio Allegri da Correggio (August 1489 – 5 March 1534), usually known as just Correggio (, also , , ), was the foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance, who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sens ...

gentle colours. Cirici Pellicer, ''El barroquismo, Editorial Ramón Sopena'', Barcelona 1963, page 75

Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo Gian Paolo Lomazzo (26 April 1538 – 27 January 1592; his first name is sometimes also given as "Giovan" or "Giovanni") was an Italian artist and writer on art. Praised as a painter, Lomazzo wrote about artistic practice and art theory after ...

also wrote on that style in his ''Idea del tempio della pittura'' (1591).

Bibliography

* Claudio Strinati,
Annibale Carracci
', Firenze, Giunti Editore, 2001

References

External links

* http://www.bibliotecasalaborsa.it/content/percorsi/carracci.html {{authority control Art schools in Italy 1582 establishments in the Papal States Learned societies of Italy Educational institutions established in the 1580s