Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints (detail with Angels battling Demons in the Sky) 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints (detail) 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints (detail) 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints (detail) 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints (detail) 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice)- Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints (detail) 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints (detail) 1514 oil on panel Museo Diocesano di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child with Saints ca. 1520-30 oil on panel Pinacoteca Civica di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child with Saints (detail) ca. 1520-30 oil on panel Pinacoteca Civica di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Virgin and Child with Saints (detail) ca. 1520-30 oil on panel Pinacoteca Civica di Ascoli Piceno |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Death and Assumption of the Virgin 1515-16 oil on panel Pinacoteca Capitolina, Rome |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Holy Family with young St John the Baptist ca. 1520-30 oil on panel Fondazione Cavallini Sgarbi, Ferrara |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (detail) before 1547 oil on panel private collection |
Nicola Filotesio (Cola dell'Amatrice) Roundel of the Nativity supported by Angels and attended by Saints (detail) before 1547 oil on panel (damaged) Chiesa di San Francesco, Ascoli Piceno |
"At this same time lived Niccola, commonly called by everyone Maestro Cola della Matrice, who executed many works in Calabria, at Ascoli, and at Norcia, which are very well known, and which gained for him the name of a rare master – the best, indeed, that there had ever been in these parts. And since he also gave his attention to architecture, all the buildings that were erected in his day at Ascoli and throughout all that province had him as architect. Cola, without caring to see Rome or to change his country, remained always at Ascoli, living happily for some time with his wife, a woman of good and honourable family, and endowed with extraordinary nobility of spirit, as was proved when the strife of parties arose at Ascoli, in the time of Pope Paul III. For then, while she was flying with her husband, with many soldiers in pursuit, more on her account (for she was a very beautiful young woman) than for any other reason, she resolved, not seeing any other way in which she could save her own honour and the life of her husband, to throw herself from a high cliff to the depth below. At which all the soldiers believed that she was not only mortally injured, but dashed to pieces, as indeed she was; wherefore they left the husband without doing him any harm, and returned to Ascoli. After the death of this extraordinary woman, worthy of eternal praise, Maestro Cola passed the rest of his life with little happiness. A short time afterwards, Signor Alessandro Vitelli, who had become Lord of Matrice, took Maestro Cola, now an old man, to Città di Castello, where he caused him to paint in his palace many works in fresco and many other pictures; which worked finished, Maestro Cola returned to finish his life at Matrice. This master would have acquitted himself not otherwise than passing well, if he had practised his art in places where rivalry and emulation might have made him attend with more study to painting, and exercise the beautiful intellect with which it is evident that he was endowed by nature."
– from Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giorgio Vasari (1568), translated by Gaston du C. de Vere (1912)