Niccolò Circignani (c. 1517/1524 – after 1596) was an Italian painter of the late- Renaissance or Mannerist period.
Biography
Born in Pomarance, he is one of three Italian painters called Pomarancio. His first works are documented from the 1560s, where he painted frescos on the Old Testament stories for the VaticanBelvedere, where he may have worked alongside Santi di Tito and
Giovanni de' Vecchi
Giovanni de' Vecchi (1536, Sansepolcro – 1614) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance period.
Born in Borgo San Sepolcro, He first apprenticed with the painter Raffaello del Colle, then with Taddeo Zuccari, whom he assisted in the in ...
. He also completed altarpieces for
Orvieto
Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...
Willem van den Broecke
Willem van den Broecke, Willem van den Broeck or Guillelmus Paludanus (1530 – 1579) was a Flemings, Flemish sculptor, painter, draughtsman and architect. He was a scion of a family of artists, which had its origins in Mechelen and some members ...
and a relative of the painter
Chrispijn van den Broeck
Chrispijn van den Broeck (1523 – c. 1591) was a Flemish painter, draughtsman, print designer and designer of temporary decorations.Perugia, the ''Resurrection'' (1569 in Panicale) and an ''Annunciation'' (1577, now in the
Pinacoteca Comunale, Città di Castello
The Pinacoteca Comunale of Città di Castello is the main museum of paintings and arts of Umbria Italian Region, alongside the Perugia's National gallery, and it's housed in a renaissance palace, generally preserved in its original form.
History
...
).
He painted frescoes (starting 1574) on mythologic themes including a ''Judgement of Paris'', ''Stories from the Aenid'', and others, in collaboration with Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi in the ''Palazzo della Corgna'' in
Castiglione del Lago
Castiglione del Lago is a town in the province of Perugia of Umbria (central Italy), on the southwest corner of Lake Trasimeno. Orvieto is south, Chiusi is to the south west, Arezzo is to the north west, Cortona is to the north and Perugi ...
.
From 1579 he returned to Rome to work with
Matthijs Bril
Matthijs Bril or Matthijs Bril the Younger (1550 – 8 June 1583) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman of landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made feat ...
and decorated the ''Sala della Meridiana'' in the ''Torre dei Venti'' (finished before the end of 1580) as well as in the Loggie (1580–83) in the Vatican. He then became one of the artists favored by the Jesuits. Assisted by Matteo da Siena, he began depicting scenes of Jesuit martyrdom. He was further commissioned such works, depicting church martyrs, with help from Antonio Tempesta for the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo. Here he finally completed over thirty graphic scenes of martyrdom, depicting every gruesome method as if it were an advertisement for a torture chamber.
Visitors like Charles Dickens expressed horror at the spectacle in this church, calling it a:S. Stefano Rotondo, in Thayer's Guide to Roman Churches /ref>
damp, mildewed vault of an old church in the outskirts of Rome, ... by reason of the hideous paintings with which its walls are covered. These represent the martyrdoms of saints and early Christians; and such a panorama of horror and butchery no man could imagine in his sleep, though he were to eat a whole pig raw, for supper. Grey-bearded men being boiled, fried, grilled, crimped, singed, eaten by wild beasts, worried by dogs, buried alive, torn asunder by horses, chopped up small with hatchets: women having their breasts torn with iron pinchers, their tongues cut out, their ears screwed off, their jaws broken, their bodies stretched upon the rack, or skinned upon the stake, or crackled up and melted in the fire: these are among the mildest subjects.
Circignani's last documented painting, in Cascia, is from 1596.