Lanfranco, Giovanni

(1582-1647)

   Lanfranco studied with Agostino Carracci in his native city of Parma and, when his teacher died in 1602, he moved to Rome. There he worked as one of Annibale Carracci's assistants on the Farnese ceiling commission (c. 1597-1600). From 1610 until 1612, Lanfranco was in Piacenza and, upon his return to Rome, his career suddenly soared. He received work from Pope Paul V in the Sala Reggia of the Palazzo Quirinale where his Presentation in the Temple stands out (c. 1616). The work owes a debt to Carracci in the lucid spatial construction, solidity of the figures, and appealing pastel tones. His Madonna and Child with Sts. Charles Borromeo and Bartholomew, painted for the Church of San Lorenzo in Piacenza (c. 1616), features a Carraccesque hourglass composition and St. Charles' gesture faithfully copies that of St. Dominic in Ludovico Carracci's Bargellini Madonna (1588; Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale). Lanfranco's Ecstasy of St. Margaret of Cortona (1622; Florence, Palazzo Pitti) he painted as the altarpiece in the Church of Santa Maria Nuova in Cortona for Niccoló Gerolamo Venuti whose coat of arms is included in the lower left. The swooning St. Margaret, who experiences the vision of Christ with wounds hovering above the clouds, became the prototype for Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Theresa in the Cornaro Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome (1645-1652). Lanfranco's most notable commission is the dome of Sant' Andrea della Valle, which depicts the Virgin in Glory (1625-1627). The work is based on Correggio's Assumption of the Virgin in the Cathedral of Parma (1526-1530). A spectacular di sotto in sù image with figures arranged in concentric circles, the fresco grants the illusion of a sudden apparition in the heavens. With this dome, Lanfranco introduced Correggio's dramatic illusionistic techniques to Rome.