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| Felice Riccio (Felice Brusasorci) Battle of Centaurs and Lapiths ca. 1600 oil on canvas Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona |
"Felice Brusasorci, Domenico Brusasorci's moderately gifted son, carried the frequent Emilian inclination of the Veronese one step farther, for he went to Florence and worked there for some years. He did not settle permanently (as did his compatriot Jacopo Ligozzi) but returned to Verona, and seems to have resided there until his death. We have no accurate evidence of the work Felice did in Florence, but what he did following his resettlement in Verona is not original, nor is it even conspicuously Tuscanized."
– S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy (Penguin, 1971)
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| Ventura Salimbeni Dead Christ supported by an Angel (detail) ca. 1600 oil on panel (door of a tabernacle) Museo d'Arte Sacra della Val d'Arbia, Buonconvento |
"Ventura Salimbeni had been formed in the main in Rome, where he went to work as a youth, leaving his native Siena. By the turn of the century he was back in Siena, painting with his older half-brother, Francesco Vanni. His style was much susceptible to influence from his half-brother, but a temperamental rather than a technical difference kept the two apart. Salimbeni had the lighter spirit and the more delicate touch, at times suggesting the quality of [Federico] Barocci more than Vanni did; yet Salimbeni was no more dependently imitative of Barocci's style than was his brother. Like Vanni, Salimbeni came to approximate the tendencies of seventeenth-century Baroque style."
– S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy (Penguin, 1971)
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| Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari) Abduction of Europa (detail) ca. 1603-1606 oil on canvas Galleria Borghese, Rome |
"Giuseppe Cesari (usually called by his papal title, Cavaliere d'Arpino) – The favourite painter of Pope Clement VII Aldobrandini, he specialized in decorative cycles for high-ranking ecclesiastics and Roman princes. He also designed the mosaics for the dome of St. Peter's, 1603-1612. His recollections of Raphael are unrefreshed by studies from nature."
– Erika Langmuir and Norbert Lynton, The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists (2000)
"As court painter to the Medici, the prolific Jacopo Ligozzi specialized in portraits and animal subjects, drew scientific studies of natural objects, sketched people in costumes, executed frescoes, religious paintings and miniatures, and supplied designs for works to be executed in pietre dure."
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| Jacopo Ligozzi Christ carrying the Cross 1604 oil on canvas private collection |
"As court painter to the Medici, the prolific Jacopo Ligozzi specialized in portraits and animal subjects, drew scientific studies of natural objects, sketched people in costumes, executed frescoes, religious paintings and miniatures, and supplied designs for works to be executed in pietre dure."
– from curator's notes at the Getty Museum
"Giovanni Battista Crespi (called Cerano) – With Giulio Cesare Procaccini and Morazzone, Cerano was one of the three foremost painters in Milan in the early 1600s; a protégé of Cardinal Federico Borromeo and one of the leading artists of the Italian Counter-Reformation. He was also a sculptor, architect, engraver, and writer. His eclectic but always expressive style had local roots – notably the realism of the Lombard Sacri Monti – but was affected also by [Federico] Barocci and Roman Mannerism, with which Cerano became acquainted during a visit to Rome in the late 1590s. After his return to Milan, he participated in the city's two most important artistic commissions of 1601-10: the decoration of the side aisles of S. Maria presso S. Celso and the so-called Quadroni of S. Carlo Borromeo. For the former he executed both vault frescoes and stucco sculptures. The Quadroni are huge paintings, nearly 5 meters x 6 meters in glue size on canvas, illustrating the life and miracles of Carlo Borromeo, and part of a propaganda campaign mounted in Milan to obtain his canonization."
– Erika Langmuir and Norbert Lynton, The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists (2000)
"Scarsellino belongs essentially to the late sixteenth century, but in his small landscapes with their sacred or profane themes he combines the spirited technique of Venetian painting and the colour of Jacopo Bassano with the tradition of Dosso Dossi. He thus becomes an important link with early seventeenth-century landscape painters, and his influence on an Emilian master like Mastelletta is probably greater than is at present realized."
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| Enea Salmeggia (il Salmezza) Virgin and Child in Glory with St Roch, St Francis and St Sebastian (detail) 1604 oil on canvas Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan |
"Together with Francesco Zucco and Gian Paolo Cavagna, Enea Salmeggia dominated painting in early 17th-century Bergamo. He trained in Milan under Simone Peterzano, but was back in Bergamo by 1600, where he came to be known as the Raffaello Bergamasco for his updated interpretations of Bernardino Luini and Correggio."
– Antichità Castelbarco, Riva del Garda
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| Giovanni Battista Crespi (il Cerano) St Michael Archangel ca. 1605-1610 oil on canvas Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan |
"Giovanni Battista Crespi (called Cerano) – With Giulio Cesare Procaccini and Morazzone, Cerano was one of the three foremost painters in Milan in the early 1600s; a protégé of Cardinal Federico Borromeo and one of the leading artists of the Italian Counter-Reformation. He was also a sculptor, architect, engraver, and writer. His eclectic but always expressive style had local roots – notably the realism of the Lombard Sacri Monti – but was affected also by [Federico] Barocci and Roman Mannerism, with which Cerano became acquainted during a visit to Rome in the late 1590s. After his return to Milan, he participated in the city's two most important artistic commissions of 1601-10: the decoration of the side aisles of S. Maria presso S. Celso and the so-called Quadroni of S. Carlo Borromeo. For the former he executed both vault frescoes and stucco sculptures. The Quadroni are huge paintings, nearly 5 meters x 6 meters in glue size on canvas, illustrating the life and miracles of Carlo Borromeo, and part of a propaganda campaign mounted in Milan to obtain his canonization."
– Erika Langmuir and Norbert Lynton, The Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists (2000)
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| Scarsellino The Birth of the Virgin 1607 oil on canvas Palazzo dei Musei, Modena |
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| Scarsellino The Fall of Man 1607 oil on canvas Palazzo dei Musei, Modena |
"Scarsellino belongs essentially to the late sixteenth century, but in his small landscapes with their sacred or profane themes he combines the spirited technique of Venetian painting and the colour of Jacopo Bassano with the tradition of Dosso Dossi. He thus becomes an important link with early seventeenth-century landscape painters, and his influence on an Emilian master like Mastelletta is probably greater than is at present realized."
– Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy: the Early Baroque, 1600-1625, originally published in 1958, revised by Joseph Connors and Jennifer Montagu (Yale, 1999)
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| Jacopo da Empoli (Jacopo Chimenti) The Annunciation 1609 oil on canvas Basilica di Santa Trinità, Florence |
"A painter of considerable charm, who deserves special mention, is Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli. He began in [Bernardino] Poccetti's studio with a marked bias towards Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo, but the manner which he developed is a peculiar compound of the older Florentine Mannerism and a rich, precise and sophisticated colour scheme in which yellow predominates."
– Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy: the Early Baroque, 1600-1625, originally published in 1958, revised by Joseph Connors and Jennifer Montagu (Yale, 1999)
"Among other painters who came under Caravaggio's influence maybe be mentioned the Veronese Pasquale Ottino, Marcantonio Bassetti, and Alessandro Turchi, all three Felice Brusasorci's pupils before going to Rome."
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| Pasquale Ottino The Age of Gold ca. 1610 oil on canvas Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona |
"Among other painters who came under Caravaggio's influence maybe be mentioned the Veronese Pasquale Ottino, Marcantonio Bassetti, and Alessandro Turchi, all three Felice Brusasorci's pupils before going to Rome."
– Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy: the Early Baroque, 1600-1625, originally published in 1958, revised by Joseph Connors and Jennifer Montagu (Yale, 1999)
"Saraceni's presence in Rome is confirmed by his apprenticeship with the Vicenzan sculptor and painter Camillo Mariani in 1598. In fact, Saraceni was surely among th artists who hoped to benefit from the numerous commissions for the Jubilee of 1600, presented under the auspices of the pontifical family of Clement VIII Aldobrandini. Saraceni's heterogeneous style bore a resemblance to the "Venetian" manner of Tintoretto, Veronese and Bassano, and to the Bolognese school, although the artist was also inspired by Adam Elsheimer's naturalism and landscapes. Saraceni became a member of Accademia di San Luca in 1607."
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| Carlo Saraceni The Last Judgment ca. 1610 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| Carlo Saraceni The Last Judgment (detail) ca. 1610 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
"Saraceni's presence in Rome is confirmed by his apprenticeship with the Vicenzan sculptor and painter Camillo Mariani in 1598. In fact, Saraceni was surely among th artists who hoped to benefit from the numerous commissions for the Jubilee of 1600, presented under the auspices of the pontifical family of Clement VIII Aldobrandini. Saraceni's heterogeneous style bore a resemblance to the "Venetian" manner of Tintoretto, Veronese and Bassano, and to the Bolognese school, although the artist was also inspired by Adam Elsheimer's naturalism and landscapes. Saraceni became a member of Accademia di San Luca in 1607."
– Nelda Damiano, from Caravaggio & His Followers in Rome (Yale, 2011)
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| Giovanni Battista Rovedata St John the Baptist Preaching ca. 1610 oil on black marble (pietra da paragone) Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona |
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| Giovanni Battista Rovedata The Agony in the Garden ca. 1610 oil on black marble (pietra da paragone) Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona |
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| Giovanni Battista Rovedata The Agony in the Garden (detail) ca. 1610 oil on black marble (pietra da paragone) Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona |
"It is well known that the word "baroque" was not applied to the visual arts before the end of the eighteenth century, when it appeared as a form of abuse (meaning the superlative form of "bizarre"), and that it was not used as a stylistic term until 1855, when it was so applied by Jacob Burckhardt. Similarly, the concept of "classic" in a stylistic rather than canonical sense was invented by Friedrich Schlegel in 1797, while its derivative "classicism" belongs entirely to the nineteenth century. . . . The concepts of "classic" and "baroque" are indeed products of the Romantic movement (it is significant that the earliest definitions of "classicism" often oppose it to "romanticism"), and they are fundamental to the movement's attempt to define itself with respect to the tension so acutely felt between the demands of reason and feeling. . . . However, as detailed knowledge has multiplied exponentially as a result of the post-War revival of interest in the art of the seventeenth century in Italy, so have scholars increasingly chafed against dependence upon concepts that, after all, have no part to play in the highly sophisticated artistic discourse of the period. While useful in helping to distinguish, say, an early Poussin from a late one, the concepts of the classic and baroque are less helpful when it comes to distinguishing Poussin's classicism from that of the late Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona's baroque from that of Guercino, or understanding critically the expressive content of their individual works."
– Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, from The State of Research in Italian Painting of the Seventeenth Century, published in The Art Bulletin (December, 1987)