Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
"Giovanni Camillo Sagrestani, a scholar of Giusti, was esteemed at Florence, even during the lifetime of Gabbiani and Gherardini. To study different masters, he visited the best schools of Italy, and for some time attended the school of Cavaliere Cignani, whose manner he copied rather than emulated. One of his Holy Families is in the Madonna de' Ricci, the beauty of which has more of an ideal cast, and the colouring is more florid, than is usual with his contemporaries of this school. One of the first judges in Florence assured me that this painting was the work of Sagrestani, although others ascribe it to his scholar, Matteo Bonechi. Bonechi had excellent parts, but not an equal knowledge of the art, in which he is reported to have been instructed by a species of dictation; for he practiced under the eye, and was directed by the voice of his master. He thus became one of those practical artists who make up for the poverty of their design by their spirit and their colouring. There are some of his pictures that in any collection would be particularly calculated to attract the eye."
– from The History of Painting in Italy by Luigi Lanzi, translated by Thomas Roscoe (London: Simpkin & Marshall, 1828)
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |
Matteo Bonechi Apotheosis of the Guicciardini Family (detail) ca. 1720 ceiling fresco Palazzo Valori-Altoviti, Florence |