Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669)

Italian painter and architect. He was a major influence in the development of the high baroque. His enormous fresco Allegory of Divine Providence (1633-39; Barberini Palace, Rome) glorifies his patron the pope and the Barberini family, and gives a convincing illusion of reality.

He studied at Cortona under a Florentine painter, Andrea Commodi, and then in Rome, where he attracted the notice of Urban VIII and enjoyed the patronage of a succession of pontiffs. 1620-1640 he produced paintings for the Marchese Sacchetti (Rome, Capitoline Gallery), frescoes for Cardinal Francesco Barberini in Sta Bibiana and other Roman churches, and his masterpiece, the allegorical ceiling painting for the Barberini Palace, 1633-39 (Rome, Galleria Nazionale), in which the illusionist effect of figures foreshortened and floating in space as seen from below was contrived with immense skill and daring.

Outside Rome he worked only in Florence (decorations for the Pitti Palace, 1640-47), refusing invitations to go to France and Spain. He later resumed work in Rome in the Pamfili and Barberini palaces. He collaborated with the theologian Ottonelli in a treatise on painting and sculpture, 1653, and as architect was responsible for the facade of Sta Maria in Via Lata and the church of S Martino in which he was buried.