Pietro Da Cortona

Pietro da Cortona was one of three men who defined Roman Baroque: Bernini in sculpture, Borromini in architecture, Cortona in painting. His ceiling fresco Allegory of Divine Providence and Barberini Power (1633 to 1639) in the Palazzo Barberini was a watershed in illusionistic painting, and the model for every Baroque ceiling that followed it.

He was born Pietro Berrettini in Cortona, Tuscany, around 1596 and trained in Rome under Andrea Commodi and Baccio Ciarpi. He served as head of the Accademia di San Luca from 1634 to 1638. His architectural works include the facades of Santa Maria della Pace and Santa Maria in Via Lata, making him one of the rare artists of the period to excel equally as painter, architect and interior decorator.

His frescoes in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence (1637 to 1647) were his other major decorative cycle. He died in Rome in 1669, at seventy-two.

His influence on Baroque ceiling painting was immediate and lasting: every illusionistic fresco produced in Rome for the next century took the Barberini ceiling as its starting point, whether following Cortona's method or reacting against it. Few single paintings have shaped an entire tradition so decisively.