Tarquinio Ligustri by Maria Barbara Guerrieri Borsoi - Biographical Dictionary of Italians - Volume 65 (2005)

He was born in Viterbo, where he was baptized on 8 Ag. 1564, by Giovan Pietro and Faustina Laziosi (Angeli). There is no news on his artistic formation that is likely to have taken place between Caprarola and Bagnaia, where the Farnese palace and the villa of cardinal Gianfrancesco Gambara offered numerous examples of up-to-date painting of late Mannerism, in particular in the genre of the landscape that was favored by Ligustri .

It appears documented starting from 1587, when an important series of works began for the Palazzo dei Priori in Viterbo.

At first he signed a contract for the decoration of all the walls of the Regia room; then, the following year, together with Giovanni Antonio Mussi and Ludovico Nucci he painted the vault of the access stairs to the main hall and in 1588-89 he collaborated with Baldassarre Croce, who had been the main commissioner (initially assigned to the same Ligustri), to the decoration of the walls. Although the documents do not specify it, it is possible that Ligustri has dealt with the fake architectural structure, seen in perspective, and perhaps also with the views with Etruria Urbs and Viterbo . In 1592 he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the hall, always together with Nucci, with the depictions of castles in ancient time to the city of Viterbo, where the representation of the landscape already assumes an unusual importance, demonstrating a clear assonance with the production of Antonio Tempesta.

In 1596 he made three important engravings: the City of Viterbo , dedicated to Cardinal Odoardo Farnese; the Villa di Bagnaia , with a dedication to the new owner, the rich and powerful cardinal Alessandro Peretti; and a series of architectural corbels, offered to the architect Ottaviano Mascherino. The importance of the characters mentioned attests to a widening of the painter's horizons, which by now had turned his attention to Rome. In 1598 its presence in the papal city is attested by two notarial deeds, but already the previous year it is absent from Viterbo. In this time the transfer must have taken place, even if both short previous Roman stays and temporary stays are possible in the place of origin.

In the sparse biography of Baglione some of the works performed in sacred places by Ligustri after the arrival in Rome are mentioned, including the decoration of the chapel dedicated to the Conception in S. Silvestro in Capite, granted in patronage in 1596 to the bishop Antonio Maria Manzoli who undertook to have it decorated.

In the absence of documents and of the possibility of examining the destroyed paintings, depicting perspectives and cherubs, it seems more appropriate to keep the dating close to the date on which the patronage was granted, rather than moving it until 1604-05, as has been proposed (Nicolai, p. . 380).

Yet Baglione testified to the participation of Ligustri in the decoration, "with various compartments", of the left aisle in the church of S. Cecilia, in the ambit of the works promoted since 1599 by Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrato who saw the participation of a large group of painters. The intervention of Ligustri could be identified in the false oculi of the volticelle, with short angels in the manner of Giovanni and Cherubino Alberti, and in the architectural aedicules painted on the walls of the left nave. Precise documentary indications allow us to date the intervention of Ligustri in the decoration of the church of S. Vitale to 1599. The criticism agrees, except for Bailey (2003), in recognizing the ten great landscapes with martyrdom scenes - where the landscape, similar to that of Paul Bril, dominates the small human figures, but contributes to historicizing the events and underlining the tragic, with harsh and sometimes unreal forms - and, with less security, interventions in the frescoes in the presbyterial area. A payment for unspecified works also took place in 1603.

In 1600 he painted twice in the palace of Asdrubale Mattei (Palazzo Mattei di Giove), with fake architecture in perspective, within a vast team of painters led by Cristoforo Roncalli. The works were particularly appreciated and reveal, in addition to a clever use of light sources, a perspective virtuosity linked to the contemporary Roman examples of the Alberti brothers.

Still in that jubilee year Ligustri collaborated in the decoration of one of the rooms that overlook the homonymous square of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, then inhabited by Cardinal Alessandro Peretti. The date 1600 appears in the corners of the frieze of the environment that presents on the short sides two coretti in perspective on the sides of groups of putti with coats of arms, figurations that recur identical in the Paravicini palace, where Ligustri would have worked six years later. For relations with Peretti it is interesting to note how a Bernabeo Ligustri living between Rome and Bagnaia, a man capable of drawing complex geographical maps, was the superintendent and general factor of Prince Michele Peretti, was often used by the cardinal for his business (State Arch. of Rome, Notaries of the Court of the Auditor Camerae , B. Fusco , prot. 3331, cc 610 ff., dated 27 March 1610).

Between 1602 and 1603 Ligustri painted for Massimo Massimi the imposing vault of a gallery recently added to the family palace, for which he was paid a higher amount than the one collected for similar works of Palazzo Mattei (Sickel ), perhaps due to the greater complexity of the company, but perhaps also as a sign of a growing appreciation of its capabilities. At the signing of the contract for the Massimo was present Roncalli, with whom it is probable that Ligustri had had further contacts also in the following years.

A further testimony of such a consideration in the Roman artistic scenario, also in the institutional sphere, arises in 1604 the appointment of Ligustri as secretary of the Academy of St. Luke, to which he must therefore have already been registered.

The most representative work of the landscape production of Ligustri is undoubtedly the frieze painted in 1606 for the new gallery of the palace of Cardinal Ottavio Paravicini alle Stimmate, today Besso, frieze depicting, in addition to choirs formulated in the same way as the aforementioned works to the Chancellery, eight Virtues and above all Countries with hermits .

For the realization of these scenes he drew partial cues, for single figures, from prints of Tempesta and the Sadeler brothers. The exaltation of the eremitical life, here understood as a serene relationship between the man of faith and a hospitable nature, is linked to the Filipino religiosity, to which the landlord had been particularly close. The certain attribution to Ligustri of these landscapes makes it possible to make some clarity in the complex landscape painting landscape in Rome at the beginning of the seventeenth century, often generally approached the school of Bril.

The last documented work by Ligustri is the decoration of the vault of the Alli Maccarani chapel in S. Marcello al Corso, ordered by Prospero Alli in 1607, whose payments, however, lasted until 1613. Here the painter applied those to a sacred space perspective virtuosities of which he had given ample essay to Palazzo Mattei, completing the decoration with small monochrome scenes of religious theme. Still unknown is the production of the painter's mobile works also existed, as attested by two payments by Giovan Angelo Altemps of 1616 for a drawing of a perspective in paper, which is unknown whether preliminary to a pictorial transposition.

To the safe jobs, so far listed, there are others, of more uncertain or no longer confirmed attribution. The landscapes, also attributed to Ligustri, are by Cornelis Loots, with stories of Tusculum in the Farnese loggia of the abbey of Grottaferrata. Röttgen (in Baglione, III, p. 547 note C 70, 32) believed that he had worked in the frieze of the Consistory hall in the Vatican palace, by Cherubino Alberti and Bril. Faldi assigned to Ligustri some landscapes of the helicoidal scale of Caprarola, whose usual dating to 1580-83 is however difficult to reconcile with the age of the painter, making the most usual reference to Tempesta more likely. It is possible to hypothesize the participation of Ligustri in vast yards of the early seventeenth century, including the decoration of the Vatican apartment of Paul V, where some scenes show similarities with the frieze Paravicini (Cappelletti, 2003); while the assignment to Ligustri (Id., 2002) of the landscapes of the hall of Villa Sora in Frascati is not acceptable, due to the evident differences in the way of creating the figures and the landscape elements with respect to the previous and certain paintings.

Of Ligustri, perhaps cited on the date of 1615 in the parochial register of S. Lorenzo in Lucina, the date of death is not known, placed however by Baglione towards the end of the pontificate of Paul V, that is by 1621.

Sources and Bibles : G. Baglione, Le vite ... (1642), edited by J. Hess - H. Röttgen, Vatican City 1995, I, p. 168; III, p. 547 note C 70, 32; G. Mancini, Considerations on painting , edited by A. Marucchi - L. Salerno, I, Rome 1956-57, p. 256; A. Zuccari, Art and commissioning in the Rome of Caravaggio , Rome 1984, pp. 159-164; A. Carosi, Notes on the Viterbo Town Hall , Viterbo 1988, pp. 13, 15, 17, 21, 40, 43-50, 55 s .; M. Bevilacqua, in Sisto V. Arts and culture (catal.), Edited by ML Madonna, Rome 1993, p. 528; MB Borsoi Warriors, Palazzo Besso. The dwelling from the Rustici to the Paravicini and the frescoes by TL , Roma 2000, ad ind. ; N. Angeli, The Ligustri of Viterbo and Bagnaia , in the Library and society , XIX (2000), 1-2, pp. 19-22; L. Carloni, S. Vitale, the apse basin and the stuccoes of the presbytery area , in Restoration of art and jubilee , edited by A. Negro, Naples 2001, pp. 86-88, 91, 97 n. 31; F. Nicolai, Path of TL painter from Viterbo , in Roman Studies , XLIX (2001), 3-4, pp. 376-390; LP Bonelli, Between the mannerist landscape and the naturalistic vision: the ceiling of the Regia room , in La sala Regia. History, restoration. Proceedings of the Study Day… 2000 , edited by MG Bonelli - LP Bonelli, Viterbo 2001, pp. 83-86; A. Lo Bianco, The Regal Room: considerations on restoration , ibid ., Pp. 20-22; I. Faldi, The painting of the late sixteenth century in Viterbo , ibid ., P. 126; F. Cappelletti, Landscape painting and workshop practice. Some initial reflection for Lilio, Bril and L. , in Caravaggio in the 4th centenary of the Contarelli chapel . Proceedings of the Conference ... Rome 2001 , edited by C. Volpi, Città di Castello 2002, pp. 317-320; L. Spezzaferro, Caravaggio accepted. From the refusal to the market , ibid ., P. 48; L. Sickel, An unpublished fresco by TL: the "perspective" in the gallery of the Massimo alle Colonne palace , in Bollettino d'arte , LXXXVII (2002), 120, pp. 93-98; BA Bailey, Between Renaissance and Baroque. Jesuit art in Rome, 1565-1610 , Toronto-Buffalo-London 2003, pp. 169 s .; F. Cappelletti, Still on Paul Bril around 1600. Some observations on the landscape with sacred stories, the tradition of hermits and a new client , in Decoration and collecting in Rome in the seventeenth century. Events of artists, clients, merchants , edited by F. Cappelletti, Rome 2003, pp. 9 s., 17 s .; U. Thieme - F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon , XXXIV, p. 428 ( sv Viterbo, Tarquinio da ).

Translated from: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/tarquinio-ligustri_(Dizionario-Biografico)/