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Jacopo Pacchiarotti

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Two painters of the Sienese school. One or other of them produced some good pictures, which used to pass as the performance of Perugino; reclaimed from Perugino, they were assigned to Pacchiarotto; now it is sufficiently settled that the good works are by G. del Pacchia, while nothing of Pacchiarotto's own doing transcends mediocrity. The mythical Pacchiarotto who worked actively at Fontainebleau has no authenticity.

Girolamo del Pacchia, son of a Hungarian cannon-founder, was born, probably in Siena, in 1477. Having joined a turbulent club named the Bardotti he disappeared from Siena in 1535, when the club was dispersed, and nothing of a later date is known about him. His most celebrated work is a fresco of the "Nativity of the Virgin," in the chapel of S Bernardino, Siena, graceful and tender, with a certain artificiality. Another renowned fresco, in the church of S Caterina, represents that saint on her visit to St Agnes of Montepulciano, who, having just expired, raises her foot by miracle. In the National Gallery of London there is a "Virgin and Child." The forms of G. del Pacchia are fuller than those of Perugino (his principal model of style appears to have been in reality Franciabigio); the drawing is not always unexceptionable; the female heads have sweetness and beauty of feature, and some of the colouring has noticeable force.

Pacchiarotto was born in Siena in 1474. In 1530 he took part in the conspiracy of the Libertini and Popolani, and in 1534 he joined the Bardotti. He had to hide for his life in 1535, and was concealed by the Observantine fathers in a tomb in the church of S Giovanni. He was stuffed in close to a new-buried corpse, and got covered with vermin and dreadfully exhausted by the close of the second day. After a while he resumed work; he was exiled in 1539, but recalled in the following year, and in that year or soon afterwards he died. Among the few extant works with which he is still credited is an "Assumption of the Virgin," in the Carmine of Siena. Other works rather dubiously attributed to him are in Siena, Buonconvento, Florence, Rome and London.