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

Dominican friar The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilian priest named Dominic de Guzmán. It was approved by Pope Honorius ...

and painter of the Quito school.

Biography

Fray Pedro Bedón was born in 1556 in

Quito Quito (; ), officially San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city, capital and second-largest city of Ecuador, with an estimated population of 2.8 million in its metropolitan area. It is also the capital of the province of Pichincha Province, P ...

, then part of the

Viceroyalty of Peru The Viceroyalty of Peru (), officially known as the Kingdom of Peru (), was a Monarchy of Spain, Spanish imperial provincial administrative district, created in 1542, that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in ...

(present-day

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

). He entered the

novitiate The novitiate, also called the noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a Christian ''novice'' (or ''prospective'') monastic, apostolic, or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether ...

of the Dominican order at the age of fourteen, completed his studies in

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

, 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 became ...

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 Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

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

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