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Giovanni Pietro Bellori
Giovanni Pietro Bellori (15 January 1613 – 19 February 1696), also known as Giovan Pietro Bellori or Gian Pietro Bellori, was an Italian art theorist, painter and antiquarian, who is best known for his work Lives of the Artists, considered the seventeenth-century equivalent to Vasari's Vite. His Vite de' Pittori, Scultori et Architetti Moderni, published in 1672, was influential in consolidating and promoting the theoretical case for classical idealism in art. As an art historical biographer, he favoured classicising artists rather than Baroque artists to the extent of omitting some of the key artistic figures of 17th-century art altogether.
Bellori was born in Rome on 15 January 1613, the purported son of Giacomo, a farmer. He was reared and educated by his mother's employer (and more probable biological father), Francesco Angeloni, who was an antiquarian, writer of comedies, dialogues and operas, a numismatist (Historia Augusta, 1641) and collector of art, antiquities and natural history (he had Correggio, Bassano and Titian among his paintings). Angeloni fostered in Bellori an interest in collecting and interpreting antiquities, and indeed his interest in the antique was pivotal to his whole career. On his death in 1652, Angeloni designated Bellori as his sole heir, but the will was invalidated by Angeloni's brothers, who sold off most of the collection, leaving Bellori with the house on the Pincio, located on the via Orsina near the church of Sant'Isidoro, where he had grown up and in which he lived all his life.
Bellori had been keenly interested in art since childhood. As a young man, he took art lessons from the painter Domenichino. Philip Skippon, who visited Bellori in 1665, noted, "he draws pictures and makes good landskips", and as late as 1689 when Bellori was admitted to the French Academy he was listed as a painter. He became a member of the Accademia di San Luca by 1652 and was Secretary 1652–3, 1666, and 1668–72. Bellori was a close friend of many artists, including Nicolas Poussin, Giovanni Angelo Canini, François Duquesnoy, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy and Carlo Maratta.
In the spring of 1661 he accompanied the representative of Louis XIV in Rome, M. Parisot on a long trip through Southern Italy. He became a member of the French Academy in 1689.
He was appointed Commissario delle Antichità by Pope Clement X on 31 May 1670. Bellori was librarian and antiquarian to Queen Christina of Sweden from 1677 to 1689. While serving Christina, he certainly met Filippo Baldinucci, the Florentine writer on art, who visited Rome in 1681 on the occasion of the Queen's commission to him for a biography of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
By 1695 Bellori was very ill, suffering especially in his lower legs, and had not left his house since mid 1694. He died on 19 February 1696, and was buried in the Church of S. Isidoro.
Bellori lived on the Pincian Hill near S. Isidoro, where he rebuilt the dispersed collection of Angeloni. Travellers' diaries and guidebooks confirm that Bellori had assembled a small but well-chosen gallery, with works attributed to Titian, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Maratta and Annibale Carracci, amongst others. After his death, his collection was purchased by Frederick I of Prussia and Augustus III of Saxony. Bellori's collection of ancient gems and medals found their way to Dresden where they helped shape J.J. Winckelmann's vision of antiquity.
The famous French antiquarian Jacob Spon, who met Bellori in Rome in 1675, considered him «très savant en toutes sortes d'antiquités». According to another famous visitor, Bishop Gilbert Burnet, «Bellori is deservedly famous for his knowledge of the Greek and Egyptian antiquities and for all that belongs to the mythologies and superstitions of the Heathens». Burnet included him in a list of the most learned men he met in Rome: Raffaello Fabretti, Honoré Fabri, Francesco Nazzari, Cardinal César d'Estrées, Cardinal Philip Howard and Ludovico Maracci.
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Giovanni Pietro Bellori
Giovanni Pietro Bellori (15 January 1613 – 19 February 1696), also known as Giovan Pietro Bellori or Gian Pietro Bellori, was an Italian art theorist, painter and antiquarian, who is best known for his work Lives of the Artists, considered the seventeenth-century equivalent to Vasari's Vite. His Vite de' Pittori, Scultori et Architetti Moderni, published in 1672, was influential in consolidating and promoting the theoretical case for classical idealism in art. As an art historical biographer, he favoured classicising artists rather than Baroque artists to the extent of omitting some of the key artistic figures of 17th-century art altogether.
Bellori was born in Rome on 15 January 1613, the purported son of Giacomo, a farmer. He was reared and educated by his mother's employer (and more probable biological father), Francesco Angeloni, who was an antiquarian, writer of comedies, dialogues and operas, a numismatist (Historia Augusta, 1641) and collector of art, antiquities and natural history (he had Correggio, Bassano and Titian among his paintings). Angeloni fostered in Bellori an interest in collecting and interpreting antiquities, and indeed his interest in the antique was pivotal to his whole career. On his death in 1652, Angeloni designated Bellori as his sole heir, but the will was invalidated by Angeloni's brothers, who sold off most of the collection, leaving Bellori with the house on the Pincio, located on the via Orsina near the church of Sant'Isidoro, where he had grown up and in which he lived all his life.
Bellori had been keenly interested in art since childhood. As a young man, he took art lessons from the painter Domenichino. Philip Skippon, who visited Bellori in 1665, noted, "he draws pictures and makes good landskips", and as late as 1689 when Bellori was admitted to the French Academy he was listed as a painter. He became a member of the Accademia di San Luca by 1652 and was Secretary 1652–3, 1666, and 1668–72. Bellori was a close friend of many artists, including Nicolas Poussin, Giovanni Angelo Canini, François Duquesnoy, Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy and Carlo Maratta.
In the spring of 1661 he accompanied the representative of Louis XIV in Rome, M. Parisot on a long trip through Southern Italy. He became a member of the French Academy in 1689.
He was appointed Commissario delle Antichità by Pope Clement X on 31 May 1670. Bellori was librarian and antiquarian to Queen Christina of Sweden from 1677 to 1689. While serving Christina, he certainly met Filippo Baldinucci, the Florentine writer on art, who visited Rome in 1681 on the occasion of the Queen's commission to him for a biography of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
By 1695 Bellori was very ill, suffering especially in his lower legs, and had not left his house since mid 1694. He died on 19 February 1696, and was buried in the Church of S. Isidoro.
Bellori lived on the Pincian Hill near S. Isidoro, where he rebuilt the dispersed collection of Angeloni. Travellers' diaries and guidebooks confirm that Bellori had assembled a small but well-chosen gallery, with works attributed to Titian, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Maratta and Annibale Carracci, amongst others. After his death, his collection was purchased by Frederick I of Prussia and Augustus III of Saxony. Bellori's collection of ancient gems and medals found their way to Dresden where they helped shape J.J. Winckelmann's vision of antiquity.
The famous French antiquarian Jacob Spon, who met Bellori in Rome in 1675, considered him «très savant en toutes sortes d'antiquités». According to another famous visitor, Bishop Gilbert Burnet, «Bellori is deservedly famous for his knowledge of the Greek and Egyptian antiquities and for all that belongs to the mythologies and superstitions of the Heathens». Burnet included him in a list of the most learned men he met in Rome: Raffaello Fabretti, Honoré Fabri, Francesco Nazzari, Cardinal César d'Estrées, Cardinal Philip Howard and Ludovico Maracci.