Spencer Alley: Domenico Cresti, called Il Passignano (1559-1638)

Monday, June 3, 2019

Domenico Cresti, called Il Passignano (1559-1638) - I

Domenico Cresti (Il Passignano)
Translation of the Body of St Antoninus
1589-91
fresco
Cappella Salviati, Basilica di San Marco, Florence

Domenico Cresti (Il Passignano)
Translation of the Body of St Antoninus (detail)
1589-91
fresco
Cappella Salviati, Basilica di San Marco, Florence

"The Tuscan Domenico Cresti, Il Passignano (1559-1638) spent seven or eight years of residence in Venice, between 1581/2 and 1589. He had gone there from Rome in the company of Federico Zuccaro, whose assistant he had been since the middle seventies, when Zuccaro had come to Florence to complete the painting of Vasari's dome in the cathedral. Before that Passignano had studied with Giovanni Battista Naldini, and even earlier with Girolamo Macchietti. The course of this education was one of exposure to advanced currents of the time in both Central Italian and Venetian art, among which Federico's academicism was by no means the least. Recalled to Florence in 1589 to participate in the festival decorations in honour of Christina of Lorraine, Passignano quickly secured a major commission, for fresco laterals (the Translation [above] and Funeral [below] of St. Antoninus) in the Cappella Salviati in S. Marco, where the older Alessandro Allori, Poppi [Francesco Morandini], and Giovanni Battista Naldini painted the altars. The frescoes document an extensive artistic learning, from Florentine, Roman, and Venetian sources, but it may be on account of a deliberate accommodation to the Florentine taste (with its present strains of academicism and residual Maniera) that their chief effect is of a visually sharpened version of Federico Zuccaro's style."

– S.J. Freedberg from Painting in Italy - 1500 to 1600 in the Pelican History of Art series (London, 1971)