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Zuccaro

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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or Zucchero,' the name of two Italian painters.

I. Taddeo Zuccaro (1529-1566), one of the most popular painters of the so-called Roman mannerist school, was the son of Ottaviano Zuccaro, an almost unknown painter at St Angelo in Vado, where he was born in 1529. Taddeo found his way to Rome, and he succeeded at an early age in gaining a knowledge of painting and in finding patrons to employ him. When he was seventeen a pupil of Correggio, named Daniele da Parma, engaged him to assist in painting a series of frescoes in a chapel at Vitto near Sora, on the borders of the Abruzzi. Taddeo returned to Rome in 1548, and began his career as a fresco painter, by executing a series of scenes in monochrome from the life of Furius Camillus on the front of the palace of, a wealthy Roman named Jacopo Mattel. From that time his success was assured, and he was largely employed by the popes Julius III. and Paul IV., by Della Rovere, duke of Urbino, and by other rich patrons. His best frescoes were a historical series painted on the walls of a new palace at Caprarola, built for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, for which Taddeo also designed a great quantity of rich decorations in stucco relief after the style of Giulio Romano and other pupils of Raphael. Nearly all his paintings were in fresco, very large in scale, and often in chiaroscuro or monochrome; they were more remarkable for rapidity of execution and a certain boldness of style than for any higher qualities. His work is mannered in style, artificial and pompous in conception, and lacks any close or accurate knowledge of the human form and its movements. He died in Rome in 1566, and was buried in the Pantheon, not far from Raphael.

Taddeo's easel pictures are less common than his decorative frescoes. A small painting on copper of the Adoration of the Shepherds, formerly in the collection of James II., is now at Hampton Court; it is a work of very small merit. The Caprarola frescoes were engraved and published by Prenner, Illustri Fatti Farnesiani Coloriti nel Real Palazzo di Caprarola (Rome, 1748-50).

II. Federigo Zuccaro (1543-1609) was in 1550 placed under his brother Taddeo's charge in Rome, and worked as his assistant; he completed the Caprarola frescoes. Federigo attained an eminence far beyond his very limited merits as a painter, and was perhaps the most popular artist of his generation. Probably no other painter has ever produced so many enormous frescoes crowded with figures on the most colossal scale, all executed under the unfortunate delusion that grandeur of effect could be attained merely by great size combined with extravagance of attitude and exaggeration of every kind. Federigo's first work of this sort was the completion of the painting of the dome of the cathedral at Florence; the work had been begun by the art-historian Vasari, who wrote in the most generous language about his more successful rival. Regardless of the injury to the apparent scale of the interior of the church, Federigo painted about 300 figures, each nearly 50 ft. high, sprawling with violent contortions all over the surface. Happily age has so dimmed these pictures that their presence is now almost harmless. Federigo was recalled to Rome by Gregory XIII. to continue in the Pauline chapel of the Vatican the scheme of decoration begun by Michelangelo during his failing years, but a quarrel between the painter and members of the papal court led to his departure from Italy. He visited Brussels, and there made a series of cartoons for the tapestryweavers. In 1574 he passed over to England, where he received commissions to paint the portraits of Queen Elizabeth, Mary, queen of Scots, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Francis Walsingham, Lord High Admiral Howard, and others. A curious full-length portrait of Elizabeth in fancy dress, now at Hampton Court, is attributed to this painter, though very doubtfully. Another picture in the same collection appears to be a replica of his painting of the "Allegory of Calumny," as suggested by Lucian's description of a celebrated work by Apelles; the satire in the 1 So spelt by Vasari.

original painting, directed against some of his courtier enemies, was the immediate cause of Federigo's temporary exile from Rome. His success as a painter of portraits and other works in oil was more reasonable than the admiration expressed for his colossal frescoes. A portrait of a "Man with Two Dogs," in the Pitti Palace at Florence, is a work of some real merit, as is also the "Dead Christ and Angels" in the Borghese Gallery in Rome. Federigo was soon recalled to Rome to finish his work on the vault of the Pauline chapel. In 1585 he accepted an offer by Philip II. of Spain to decorate the new Escorial at a yearly salary of 2000 crowns, and worked at the Escorial from January 1586 to the end of 1588, when he returned to Rome. He there founded in 1595, under a charter confirmed by Sixtus V., the Academy of St Luke, of which he was the first president. Its organization suggested to Sir Joshua Reynolds his scheme for founding the English Royal Academy.

Like his contemporary Giorgio Vasari, Federigo aimed at being an art critic and historian, but with very different success. His chief book, L'Idea de' Pittori, Scultori, ed Architetti (Turin, 1607), is a senseless mass of the most turgid bombast. Little can be said in praise of his smaller works, consisting of two volumes printed at Bologna in 1608, describing his visit to Parma and a journey through central Italy. Federigo was raised to the rank of a cavaliere not long before his death, which took place at Ancona in 1609.

For both Taddeo and Federigo Zuccaro, see Vasari, pt. iii., and Lanzi, Storia Pittorica, Roman School, epoch iii. (J. H. M.)