DOMENICHINO

Domenichino was perhaps the most sophisticated painter of the seventeenth century, so much so, in fact, that at times his work can seem rarefied. He also played an important cultural role with regard to the theory of art. He studied under the Carracci cousins, first in Bologna and then in Rome (where at the beginning of the century he assisted Annibale who was then working in the Farnese Gallery and on the large lunettes in Palazzo Doria Pamphilj).

Domenichino was completely bowled over by the simple, classical, and elegant beauty of Raphael’s art, having a deep admiration for all the great masters of the early sixteenth century. His career was mainly spent trying to revive that wonderful era of the High Renaissance, but he did this with a completely up-to-date critical and intellectual approach.

The picture shows scenes from the life of St Andrew painted by Domenichino on the apse calotte and on the vault of the antechoir. The scenes are: the Flagellation of St Andrew; Third Call of the Apostles Andrew and Peter; St Andrew Being Led to His Martyrdom (in the apse calotte); The Ascension of St Andrew (in the crown of the vault); First Calling of Andrew and Peter (in the antechoir vault). These scenes are presented as related in the Golden Legend.

The most spectacular figure of the composition of the centre scene is the muscular young sailor who, in a pose of daring torsion, steers the boat toward shore with his elongated rudder. It is remarkable that Domenichino managed by means of perspective to make this distinctly curving panel appear to be a flat surface.

Below the level of the narrative pictures in the choir are six monumental seated female personifications, pairs of them flanking the three windows. Fides, Caritas, Spes, and Fortitudo appear on the sides, while two virtues frame the centre window: Povertà Voluntaria with a bared torso, and Religio Regolare embracing a cross. Unlike the figures in the narrative pictures, the virtues are rendered as though physically present in the space. The bases on which they sit and the shadows they cast onto the whitewashed background lend them a distinct reality.

The picture shows Caritas, one of the six virtues in the apse calotte.

The centre of the chancel is topped by a small oval cupola. The virtuoso decor of this cupola is not stucco work but pure painting. The four evangelists are depicted in the cupola pendentives, and above them in oval panels appear three early Christian female martyrs (Sts Agnes, Cecilia, and Francesca Romana). In the cupola’s centre panel God the Father appears enthroned on clouds and flanked by angels.

A narrative scene painted on a wall as a framed picture was referred to as a “quadro riportato,” which to seventeenth-century thinking suggested that a framed panel painting had been translated into the medium of fresco. Domenichino’s wall pictures in the Cappella Polet belongs to this category.

The story of how this festive picture came to be painted is very unusual. Cardinal Aldobrandini commissioned it as a sequel to Titian’s Bacchanals which he had recently added to his collection. The comparison with such an illustrious model brought out the best in Domenichino, especially his ability to handle light, and spurred him to take a fresh approach. Unlike Titian, the Emilian painter was willing to avoid explosive use of colour and movement. Instead he seemed content to concentrate on a serene contemplation of the beauty of girls, animals, and the countryside.

In his Diana Domenichino revived antique themes and the depiction of nymphs. The subject derives from Virgil’s Aeneid (V, 485) where warriors are described competing in an archery contest and shooting a tree with their first arrow, a ribbon with their second and a falling bird with their third. It was probably Mons. Giovanni Battista Agucchi, major theorist and adviser on iconography at the time, who suggested transposing the subject matter into the realm of the nymphs led by Diana. The archery theme was adopted as a metaphor for shrewd arguments that hit the mark, which was topical at the time, as the dedication of the ‘Dicerie sacre’ by the poet Giovan Battista Marino to Pope Paul V indicates.

In capturing nature in clear compositions that predominate over the use of colour, Domenichino nonetheless adopts Venetian tones now and then in the flowing draperies, and there are extraordinary passages from green to yellow, white to blue and various shades of purple. But what opens up a new chapter in the rendering of atmosphere are his gradual and calculated changes in tone towards the pale blue mountains by using increasingly subtle glazings, which indicate a new interest in Leonardo’s theories on aerial perspective (studied and taught by the Theatine monk Matteo Zaccòlini, who taught Domenichino perspective in the 1620s).

The painting represents a supreme idealization of the ancient myth, evoked as a fable in the unbridled but exquisitely calculated play of the nymphs. The search for a classical balance mitigates the soft sensuality of the bathing figures, just as the dazzling colours are tempered by the atmospheric effect of the glazing, clearly visible after the recent restoration.

In the painted niches at the attic level stand eight monumental figures wearing Byzantine vestments and identified by Greek inscriptions. They are bare-headed and wear halos. Closest to the chancel are Sts Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nazianzus, venerated as hierarchs in Eastern Church. Secondary to them are the doctors of the church Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus, as well as the church fathers Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. The eighth figure is St Nicolas of Myra.

The patriarchs’ bright colours and animated faces have been traced to Venetian precedents; however, the pattern for the overall arrangement could have been the fifteenth-century papal portraits in the Sistine Chapel. The distinct shadows the figures cast on the wall are prefigured there.

The picture shows the niche which is located above the scene Building of the Grottaferrata Monastery. It is occupied by Gregory of Nazianzus.

In the painted niches at the attic level stand eight monumental figures wearing Byzantine vestments and identified by Greek inscriptions. They are bare-headed and wear halos. Closest to the chancel are Sts Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nazianzus, venerated as hierarchs in Eastern Church. Secondary to them are the doctors of the church Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus, as well as the church fathers Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. The eighth figure is St Nicolas of Myra.

The patriarchs’ bright colours and animated faces have been traced to Venetian precedents; however, the pattern for the overall arrangement could have been the fifteenth-century papal portraits in the Sistine Chapel. The distinct shadows the figures cast on the wall are prefigured there.

The picture shows the niche which is located above the scene of Building of the Grottaferrata Monastery. It is occupied by Athanasius the Great.

In the painted niches at the attic level stand eight monumental figures wearing Byzantine vestments and identified by Greek inscriptions. They are bare-headed and wear halos. Closest to the chancel are Sts Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nazianzus, venerated as hierarchs in Eastern Church. Secondary to them are the doctors of the church Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus, as well as the church fathers Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. The eighth figure is St Nicolas of Myra.

The patriarchs’ bright colours and animated faces have been traced to Venetian precedents; however, the pattern for the overall arrangement could have been the fifteenth-century papal portraits in the Sistine Chapel. The distinct shadows the figures cast on the wall are prefigured there.

The picture shows the niche which is located on the inner fa�ade. It is occupied by St Nicholas of Myra (Bari), pictured with a bishop’s crosier and an open codex. This bishop does not belong to the groups of church fathers, his presence could be related to the fact that Nicholas was the name given to St Nilus at his baptism.

In the painted niches at the attic level stand eight monumental figures wearing Byzantine vestments and identified by Greek inscriptions. They are bare-headed and wear halos. Closest to the chancel are Sts Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nazianzus, venerated as hierarchs in Eastern Church. Secondary to them are the doctors of the church Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus, as well as the church fathers Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. The eighth figure is St Nicolas of Myra.

The patriarchs’ bright colours and animated faces have been traced to Venetian precedents; however, the pattern for the overall arrangement could have been the fifteenth-century papal portraits in the Sistine Chapel. The distinct shadows the figures cast on the wall are prefigured there.

The picture shows the niche which is located above the scene of Meeting of St Nilus with Emperor Otto III. It is occupied by St Basil.

Frequently Domenichino blended various elements of the Roman countryside to create an imaginary landscape as a setting for a Biblical, historical, or mythological episode.

There was a famous competition between Domenichino and Guido Reni in the Oratorio di Sant’Andrea. There Domenichino depicted the martyrdom of St Andrew, Reni the apostle proceeding to the execution site. Domenichino’s fresco earned Domenichino the praise of his master Annibale Carracci.

The picture shows the general view toward the choir of the Cappella dei Santi Fondatori in the Abbey of Santa Maria, Grottaferrata.

The Exarchic Monastery of Santa Maria in Grottaferrata, also known as the Greek Abbey of Saint Nilus, was founded in 1004 by a group of monks from Calabria led by St Nilus of Rossano, a charismatic leader and a very important figure of his time. When St Nilus, the monks’ spiritual father, died shortly after founding the Abbey, St Bartholomew the Younger, his favourite disciple and cofounder of the monastery, assumed their leadership. Today, Grottaferrata is the last of the many Byzantine-Greek monasteries that dotted Sicily, southern Italy and Rome itself in the Middle Ages. It is also unique in that, having been founded fifty years before the Great Schism that divided Catholics and Orthodox, it remained in communion with the Church of Rome while preserving the Byzantine rite and monastic tradition of its founders.

Preceding the modernization in the style of the Roman Baroque, a chapel, connected to the church and consecrated by the abbey’s two founders, had been remodeled between 1608 and 1610. The redesign was funded by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese who commissioned Domenichino to decorate the chapel. The commission was completed in 1612.

Domenichino was responsible for the design of painted architecture which structures the simple space of the chapel primarily by painterly means. The elegant row of columns between the chapel and the chancel creates a caesura in terms of subject matter. The paintings in the spandrels flanking the choir arch depict the Annunciation. Between the columns one can see into the chancel, the centre of which is topped by a small oval cupola. The four evangelists are depicted in the cupola pendentives, and above them in oval panels appear three early Christian female martyrs (Sts Agnes, Cecilia, and Francesca Romana). In the cupola’s centre panel God the Father appears enthroned on clouds and flanked by angels.

By contrast to the scenes related to the Salvation, the narrative paintings on the long walls of the main space are devoted to the two founders of the abbey; because of their size and viewing angles they are the chief attractions of the ensemble. The long walls are divided into two stories, each divided by a door into two rectangular spaces of different width. The events from the lives of the two founders are presented in a total of seven scenes. The scenes selected from various sources meant to illustrate the joint activities of the two founding saints. Three scenes are in the chancel, and four on the long walls of the main room.

In the painted niches at the attic level stand eight monumental figures wearing Byzantine vestments and identified by Greek inscriptions. They are bare-headed and wear halos. Closest to the chancel are Sts Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nazianzus, venerated as hierarchs in Eastern Church. Secondary to them are the doctors of the church Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus, as well as the church fathers Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. The eighth figure is St Nicolas of Myra.

The picture shows the general view toward the interior walls of the Cappella dei Santi Fondatori in the Abbey of Santa Maria, Grottaferrata.

The Exarchic Monastery of Santa Maria in Grottaferrata, also known as the Greek Abbey of Saint Nilus, was founded in 1004 by a group of monks from Calabria led by St Nilus of Rossano, a charismatic leader and a very important figure of his time. When St Nilus, the monks’ spiritual father, died shortly after founding the Abbey, St Bartholomew the Younger, his favourite disciple and cofounder of the monastery, assumed their leadership. Today, Grottaferrata is the last of the many Byzantine-Greek monasteries that dotted Sicily, southern Italy and Rome itself in the Middle Ages. It is also unique in that, having been founded fifty years before the Great Schism that divided Catholics and Orthodox, it remained in communion with the Church of Rome while preserving the Byzantine rite and monastic tradition of its founders.

Preceding the modernization in the style of the Roman Baroque, a chapel, connected to the church and consecrated by the abbey’s two founders, had been remodeled between 1608 and 1610. The redesign was funded by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese who commissioned Domenichino to decorate the chapel. The commission was completed in 1612.

Domenichino was responsible for the design of painted architecture which structures the simple space of the chapel primarily by painterly means. The elegant row of columns between the chapel and the chancel creates a caesura in terms of subject matter. The paintings in the spandrels flanking the choir arch depict the Annunciation. Between the columns one can see into the chancel, the centre of which is topped by a small oval cupola. The four evangelists are depicted in the cupola pendentives, and above them in oval panels appear three early Christian female martyrs (Sts Agnes, Cecilia, and Francesca Romana). In the cupola’s centre panel God the Father appears enthroned on clouds and flanked by angels.

By contrast to the scenes related to the Salvation, the narrative paintings on the long walls of the main space are devoted to the two founders of the abbey; because of their size and viewing angles they are the chief attractions of the ensemble. The long walls are divided into two stories, each divided by a door into two rectangular spaces of different width. The events from the lives of the two founders are presented in a total of seven scenes. The scenes selected from various sources meant to illustrate the joint activities of the two founding saints. Three scenes are in the chancel, and four on the long walls of the main room.

In the painted niches at the attic level stand eight monumental figures wearing Byzantine vestments and identified by Greek inscriptions. They are bare-headed and wear halos. Closest to the chancel are Sts Basil, John Chrysostom, and Gregory of Nazianzus, venerated as hierarchs in Eastern Church. Secondary to them are the doctors of the church Cyril of Alexandria and John of Damascus, as well as the church fathers Athanasius the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. The eighth figure is St Nicolas of Myra.

It seems certain that it was Monsignor Agucchi, the majordomo of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, who brought the works of the young Bolognese painter, Domenichino, to the attention of his master, who had moved to Rome in 1602. Under the guidance of Annibale Carracci, Domenichino helped to establish the popularity of the classical and ideal landscape.

The anecdotal content of the painting lends itself to a variety of interpretations. The attitudes of observation, action, and expectation adopted by the figures - represented from left to right by a single person, a couple, and a family group, and differentiated by colour into red, blue, and yellow appear to correspond to three different historical perspectives: past, present, and future. They are presented, respectively, as a woman musing over the way she has come, a man carrying his companion across the river, and a peasant with his wife and children who are removing their boots. Perhaps the picture is intended as an illustration of the proverb “he who has crossed the ford, knows how deep the water is.” Yet the ending remains open to conjecture: will the man in the middle of the ford reach his goal and will the others, waiting on the bank, follow him? The significance of the picture can only be grasped if we bear in mind the high intellectual level Aldobrandini - Agucchi. The episodic composition, the smooth brush strokes, the sober and yet joyous palette, and the clear air might even seem ingenuous, but it is a refined naivete, more deliberate than natural.

The rigid organization of space, the winding course of the river and the group of buildings in the centre of the canvas, as well as the motifs of the boat and waterfall, were all derived from Annibale Carracci’s landscapes.

The contribution made by Domenichino to the development of seventeenth-century landscape painting began when he moved to Rome in 1602, There, in the Farnese workshop of Annibale Carracci, he adopted the model of his master’s frescoes as well as his easel paintings. Neither of these landscapes has a narrative. Domenichino was soon to give up this type of painting in favour of literary, biblical or mythological subjects, as in this Landscape with the Flight into Egypt.

The picture shows Luke the Evangelist painted by Domenichino in one of the four pendentives of the choir.

The uncommonly large surfaces of the cupola pendentives presented the painter with a special challenge, which he met by furnishing the evangelists, perched on clouds, with a rich figural apparatus and unusual iconographic additions.

Commissioned during the Holy Year of 1625 for Santi Giovanni e Petronio dei Bolognesi, the church of the Bolognese community in Rome, the large altarpiece was not delivered by the painter until 1629. Criticized by contemporaries for its reliance on fifteenth century structure and composition, the painting received glowing reviews from the eighteenth century neoclassicists Mengs and Canova. In 1812, during the Napoleonic upheavals, it was removed by the French to the Brera: it remained there until 1953 when it was returned to Rome.

A masterpiece of Domenichino’s maturity, it was carried out during the very years when the grand tradition of Bolognese painting was giving way before the insistence of the new and extremely vivacious baroque style. Here, to confirm the primacy of classicism in the face of this assault, Domenichino deliberately selected a compositional scheme that would renew ties to Renaissance motifs. Though these motifs had fallen into disuse during the second half of the sixteenth century, for Domenichino they were nothing less than the fundamental principles of painting. Influenced by the examples of the Venetian school, the artist forcefully reasserts the centrality of the Madonna and Child in the picture. He even quotes, quite literally, the form of Michelangelo’s Bruges Madonna. By realizing a formidable synthesis between his various Renaissance models, the artist presented an exceptional manifesto of classical painting in the very years when this style was so strongly confronted in Rome by new baroque trends.

In the painting it is possible to find important connections with Matteo Zaccolini da Cesena’s contemporary theories on colour and perspective, cited by all the sources as significant but never precisely identified in a painting. Also, in the group of music making angels, we may recognize new reflections on trends in contemporary instrumental music.

The picture shows Matthew the Evangelist painted by Domenichino in one of the four pendentives of the choir.

The uncommonly large surfaces of the cupola pendentives presented the painter with a special challenge, which he met by furnishing the evangelists, perched on clouds, with a rich figural apparatus and unusual iconographic additions.

The picture shows the paintings in the choir of Sant’Andrea della Valle: Scenes from the Life of St Andrew by Domenichino in the apse calotte; Scenes from the Martyrdom of St Andrew by Mattia Preti on the choir walls.

Sant’Andrea della Valle is the general seat for the religious order of the Theatines. Its construction started 1593 under the designs of Giacomo della Porta and Pier Paolo Olivieri, and under the patronage of Cardinal Gesualdo. With the prior patron’s death, direction of the church passed to Cardinal Alessandro Peretti di Montalto, nephew of Sixtus V. By 1608, work restarted anew with a more grandiose plan, mainly by Carlo Maderno. The interior structure of the church was finally completed by 1666, with additional touches added by Francesco Grimaldi (1560-after 1626). The Baroque fa�ade was added between 1655 and 1663 by Carlo Rainaldi, at the expense of Cardinal Francesco Peretti di Montalto, nephew of Alessandro.

One of the greatest challenges to confront Roman religious painting in the first half of the seventeenth century was the decoration of the Sant’Andrea della Valle. The structure of the church competed architecturally and in its urban setting with the two most important sixteenth-century Roman religious structures, namely Saint Peter’s, with its similar tall drum cupola visible from afar, and Il Gesù, which provided the pattern for its longitudinal structure flanked by chapels. With the painting of choir and the cupola of Sant’Andrea these prototypes were outdone, for at that time neither Saint Peter’s nor Il Gesù had any high-quality painted decoration. Accordingly, Sant’Andrea della Valle set a new standard, and introduced an epoch of Roman monumental painting that would culminate a half-century later in two simultaneous Jesuit commissions (in Sant’Ignazio di Loyola).

Domenichino was commissioned in 1622 to paint the choir. Originally he was supposed to take over the entire painted decoration of the church, however, the commission for the cupola was given to Giovanni Lanfranco instead. This led to a breach between the two former workshop assistants of Annibale Carracci. Both Domenichino’s pictures in the choir calotte and Lanfranco’s cupola were completed in 1628.

Mattia Preti was commissioned in 1650 to paint the nave of the church. The commission included four pictures in the nave vault and the compartments above the windows. Additional contracts in the same year obliged the painter the paint three scenes from the life of St Andrew on the wall of the choir, and pictures on the wall of the antechoir. The paintings on the nave vault were not realised.

In this period, the format of the official portrait remained somewhat rigid. Popes or cardinals are frequently encountered seated in an interior with the attributes of their profession. Domenichino’s portrait of Girolamo Agucchi, painted shortly after he was raised to the purple in 1604, follows this idiom.

Although some scholars have speculated that this is a self-portrait by Reni, it can plausibly attributed to his compatriot Domenichino.

This compelling portrait of Monsignor Giovanni Battista Agucchi (1570-1632), secretary to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, records the man whose friendship with the Bolognese painters, particularly those in Rome, moulded the character of Baroque painting from his time onwards.

Recently in the York Art Gallery the painting was assigned to Annibale Carracci.

The sitter of this portrait is the poet Virginio Cesarini (1594-1624). His gaunt face is shown red-eyed from the consumption that would soon bring an end to his short life. He was one of the most interesting personalities in Rome towards the end of the 1610s, being close not only to Cardinal Maffeo Barberini but also to Galileo Galilei, who dedicated his ground-breaking volume Il Saggiatore to him in 1623.

Formerly this painting was thought to be Domenichino’s self-portrait.

The painting is unusual in its format: few full-length seventeenth-century Italian portraits exist on this small scale.

One of only about twenty such landscape paintings by Domenichino, this river landscape is amongst the best documented of the artist’s works in the genre. In his biography of the painter Bellori describes it among the best examples of Domenichino’s landscapes.

Domenichino executed this painting soon after his arrival in Rome in 1602. Once there, the artist became a close prot�g� of Annibale Carracci, who no doubt encouraged the younger painter’s foray into landscape painting both by example and by direct exhortation.

Two preliminary drawings for the painting are known.

The painting can be dated around 1620 on the evidence of style. Comparisons may be made with the two large altarpieces of the Madonna del Rosario and the Martyrdom of Saint Agnes, both in Bologna (Pinacoteca), although in terms of scale and the drawing of the putto, King David playing the Harp (Versailles) provides a more suitable juxtaposition. All these works appear to have been painted in Bologna before Domenichino returned to Rome for his third extended stay in 1621. The relationship between the Saint Agnes and the two large paintings in Bologna is confirmed by a drawing at Windsor Castle which has on the recto a study for the Madonna del Rosario and on the verso one for Saint Agnes.

The painting is a fine example of what is known as Bolognese classicism, which evolved out of the late work of Annibale Carracci. Domenichino here combines harmonious colouring with purity of line. His ability as a landscape painter is only hinted at in the background of the composition. There is a certain resemblance between Saint Agnes and the figure of Saint Cecilia in the altarpiece of Saint Cecilia with Four Saints by Raphael, which was painted for a Bolognese patron. The flying angel may be borrowed from the Worship of Venus by Titian (Madrid, Prado), which was in the Aldobrandini collection in Rome at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The classical vase and the low relief on the left symbolise the pagan world which Saint Agnes rejected in favour of Christianity. The relief shows a sacrifice which is perhaps an allusion to the saints own martyrdom. The lamb held by the putto is the attribute of Saint Agnes. The uncovering of her remains in the church of Sant’Agnese fuori le mura in Rome in 1605 may have encouraged a revival of interest in her cult, of which this picture is almost certainly a product.

The picture shows the scene of Building of the Grottaferrata Monastery and the Nilus Miracle. This scene is located on the right long wall of the main room of the Cappella dei Santi Fondatori. It is one of the seven scenes depicting events from the lives of the two founder saints. A monk lost in thought was approaching the building site when one of the standing columns began to tilt, threatening to fall directly on top of him. While everybody was shouting at him to jump to safety, the monk calmly turned to the column and commanded “Stay!” Thereupon the column straightened up. The miracle was attributed to St Bartholomew the Younger, who was standing nearby.

The picture shows the scene of Meeting of St Nilus with Emperor Otto III. This scene is located on the left long wall of the main room of the Cappella dei Santi Fondatori. It is one of the seven scenes depicting events from the lives of the two founder saints. According to legend, the emperor, severely chastised by Nilus for his unmerciful persecution of the antipope Johannes Philagatos, took the opportunity to call n the holy man in Serperi, near Gaeta, while on pilgrimage to Monte Gargano. During this interview, the emperor offered him anything he wished, but Nilus was solely concerned with the salvation of the ruler’s soul.

The picture shows the scene of The Madonna Commands Sts Nilus and Bartholomew to Build a Church. This scene is located on the window wall of the chancel. It is one of the seven scenes depicting events from the lives of the two founder saints.

This scene refers to the founding legend. Here the Madonna, borne by angels, appears to the two saints and commands them to build a church on the site of her apparition. With the help of the Christ Child standing next to her, she hands them a gold orb which according to tradition was placed in the cornerstone.

The picture shows the scene of St Nilus Prays before a Crucifix. This scene is located in the narrow section on the left long wall of the main room of the Cappella dei Santi Fondatori. It is one of the seven scenes depicting events from the lives of the two founder saints.

The composition of each painting in the narrow sections contains few figures but emphasizes the landscape.

The picture shows the scene of St Bartholomew Saves the harvest. This scene is located in the narrow section on the right (window) long wall of the main room of the Cappella dei Santi Fondatori. It is one of the seven scenes depicting events from the lives of the two founder saints.

The composition of each painting in the narrow sections contains few figures but emphasizes the landscape. The subject of the present scene is a miracle by St Bartholomew, whereby through prayer a storm spares harvested grain.

The picture shows a detail the scene of Building of the Grottaferrata Monastery and the Nilus Miracle.

The picture shows the scene of St Nilus Heals a Boy, and above it the scene of The Funeral of St Nilus. This scenes are located on the wall opposite to the window wall of the chancel. They are from the seven scenes depicting events from the lives of the two founder saints.

The miracle scene depicts the healing of the son of a Byzantine officer who was possessed by a demon. The exorcising saint, assisted by a kneeling brother, dips his finger into an oil lamp suspended in front of an image of the Madonna, aware that the drop of oil will drive out the demon. Raphael’s altarpiece of the Transfiguration, the lower part of which shows the apostles healing a moonstruck boy, served as a pattern for the possessed boy.

The burial scene represents the transfer of the saint’s corpse from the monastery of St Agatha, where Nilus had died, to Grottaferrata. The unusual view of the saint lying on his bier, in extreme foreshortening and with naked feet, quite clearly resembles Caravaggio’s altarpiece The Death of the Virgin, whose installation in Rome in 1606 had caused a scandal.

Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564-1637) was one of the most brilliant, and knowledgeable lovers of art in early seventeenth-century Rome. He assembled a renowned collection of roughly 1.800 works of classical sculpture and 600 paintings, among them eleven of Caravaggio’s most important works. He purchased a villa at Bassano Romano in 1595 which was then thoroughly remodeled and enlarged. The artists who painted there between 1595 and 1604 all worked in the Mannerist style.

The north wing of the enlarged palace was erected in 1607-09 and the painted decoration was accomplished in 1609-10. There are three rooms in the north wing, the Sala della Felicità Eterna (painted by Paolo Guidotti in 1610), the Sala di Diana (painted by Domenichino in 1609) and the Galleria (painted by Francesco Albani and assistants in 1609-10).

In the Sala di Diana, Domenichino concentrated his pictures on the ceiling, fitting them into a geometrical system patterned after the Galleria Farnese. The pictures depict scenes of the moon goddess Diana.

This drawing is a sketch for the fresco scene depicting the building of the cloister in Grottaferrata. For this wall painting twenty-six preliminary studies have survived. In this highly effective first composition sketch the miracle scene is not yet included, instead, a structure reminiscent of the Pantheon in Rome appears in the background.

This painting, commissioned by the Cardinal Ludovico Lodovisi, was inspired by Raphael’s St Cecilia.

In this fresco the figure of the saint is derived from an antique sculpture. At the same time there are numerous references to Raphael’s tapestry cartoons (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). The composition is set on a shallow stage in a manner reminiscent of classical sarcophagi.

Chromatic modulations characterize the Sibyl by Domenichino, who was also an expert in music. The figure is depicted with a viola da gamba and a music book, because traditionally in antiquity sibyls sang their prophecies to the accompaniment of musical instruments.

Chromatic modulations characterize the Sibyl by Domenichino, who was also an expert in music. The figure is depicted with a viola da gamba and a music book, because traditionally in antiquity sibyls sang their prophecies to the accompaniment of musical instruments.

This painting is considered part of a group of Sibyls that Domenichino executed with the same general composition starting in the mid-1610s. The prototype is the Cumean Sibyl in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

The girl’s idealized but highly sensual beauty seems to be reflected in all the luxurious trappings that surround her. Every last detail of the picture is handled with impeccable care which was, indeed, typical of Domenichino. The Emilian painter was openly inspired by Raphael’s work, and in particular his St Cecilia in Bologna, but rephrased in a manner suitable for a pagan prophetess rather than a Christian saint, with gold-decorated turban, splendid wrap, and gilded chair.

This painting, one of Domenichino’s most popular works, is very similar to Agostino Carracci’s painting on the same subject.

The Maiden and the Unicorn is part of the decor commissioned for the Galleria Farnese under the artistic directorship of Annibale Carracci. The fresco above the south-east wall was identified at an early stage as the work of his student Domenichino, yet scholars still disagree as to the extent to which it was executed alone.

Whatever aspects of this painting may be comparable with Annibale’s own compositions, this work betrays a very different temperament indeed. The strict avoidance of dynamic spatial diagonals and the grouping of unicorn and maiden parallel to the picture plane correspond much more closely to Domenichino’s “classicistic” orientation and his preference for the art of the Renaissance, including the paintings of Raphael. Psychologically, too, much speaks for this painting’s entire execution by Domenichino. The unicorn is not merely an attribute of the virgin. In the tradition of this allegory of chastity, the unicorn seeks refuge in the lap of a virgin. Domenichino emphasizes the shyness of these two sensitive creatures who have moved out of the centre of the picture towards the edge of the woods. Instead of the full-blooded sensuality of Annibale’s figures in the Galleria Farnese, Domenichino conveys an expression of quiet and gentle introversion.

Many of Domenichino’s landscapes include small figures. Here, instead, following Annibale Carracci’s numerous examples he chose to employ relatively large ones.

The Carracci influenced numerous followers especially in Bologna. Domenichino was one of them, a prolific decorator. This painting was executed for the pictorial decoration of the so-called New Room (Sal�n Nuevo) of the Alc�zar in Madrid, an imposing gallery in the southern wing reserved for important occasions of state. The New Room underwent periodic changes of decoration during Philip IV’s reign.

After the army of Alexander the Great invaded Thebes, Timoclea is brought before him to be judged for having stoned a captain who had use violence against her. Alexander touched by her righteousness and pride, sets her free.

The window embrasures, decorated in the style of Raphael’s loggias, contain personifications of the seven virtues. The small personifications were executed with extreme care, and have been assumed to relate to the chapel’s founder and the monastic community.

The picture shows a window embrasure in the chapel with Caritas.