Santi di Tito

The Annunciation

Santi di Tito (March 6, 1536 – July 23, 1603) was one of the most influential and leading Italian painters of the proto-Baroque style – what is sometimes referred to as "Counter-Maniera" or Counter-Mannerism.[1]
Vision of St Thomas Aquinas (1593) [2]

Biography

He was born in Borgo San Sepolcro, in Tuscany. There is little documentation to support the alleged training under Bronzino or Baccio Bandinelli. From 1558 to 1564, he worked in Rome on frescoes in Palazzo Salviati and the Sala Grande of the Belvedere (Homage of the People) alongside Giovanni de' Vecchi and Niccolò Circignani. He acquired a classical trait, described as Raphaelesque by S.J. Freedburg. This style contrasted with the reigning ornate Roman painterliness of Federico and Taddeo Zuccari or their Florentine equivalents: Vasari, Alessandro Allori, and Bronzino.

After returning to Florence in 1564, he joined the Accademia del Disegno. He contributed two conventionally Mannerist paintings for the Duke's study and laboratory, the Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio. This artistic project was partly overseen by Giorgio Vasari. These paintings – the Sisters of Fetonte (Phaeton)[3] and Hercules and Iole[4] – like many of those in the studiolo, are stylized and overcrowded.

The Studiolo paintings were followed by a visit to Venice in the early 1570s. The art historian Baldinucci recounts, that as a result of this sojourn, Santi completely rejected the maniera of Bronzino, and embraced a classical Reformist and naturalistic style.[5] Santi went on to contribute a Sacra Conversazione for the Ognissanti and painted two altarpieces for Santa Croce in Florence: a crowded but monumental Resurrection (1570–74), and a creatively inspired and decorous Supper at Emmaus (1574).

Santi also painted a Resurrection of Lazarus for Volterra Cathedral; a Madonna for San Salvatore al Vescovo; a Burial of Christ for S. Giuseppe; a Baptism of Christ by St John for the Corsini palace, Florence. Santi died in Florence on July 23, 1603.[6]

A work reflective of Santi's mature style is the Vision of Saint Thomas Aquinas, also known as Saint Thomas Dedicating His Works to Christ. It expresses a simple, pious gesture that appeared to have been lost from the courtly sensibility of Italian painting since the days of Raphael, while maintaining the brittle, demarcated color that is classic of Tuscan works. It is a style that will be mirrored in the following decades, in the Bolognese School of the Carracci, in the 1580s and 90s.

Among his pupils were Ludovico Cigoli, the leading painter of art Reform in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Florence. Another pupil named Francesco Mochi became a prominent sculptor in the Baroque style and created, among other pieces, the colossal Saint Veronica, in the crossing of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome."[7]

Paintings and architecture

Resurrection of Lazarus (1576) - Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Sacred Conversation
Annunciation (1576) - Santa Maria Novella, Florence
Sisters of Phaeton (1572) - Studiolo of Francesco I, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence[4]
Hercules and Iole (1572) - Studiolo of Francesco I, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence [5]
Pietà with Saints and Military Officer - Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
Holy Family with St. Elizabeth and John the Baptist[6]
Tobie and the Angel (circa 1575) - Saint-Eustache, Paris
Doubting Thomas (1583) - Duomo, Borgo San Sepolcro
Crucifixion (1588) - Santa Croce, Florence
Marriage at Cana (1593) - Villa Chierichetti, Colazzo
Supper at Emmaus (1588) - Sant Croce[7]
Annunciation (1602) - Santa Maria Novella
Four ages of Woman and the Written Law - Musee Fesch, Ajaccio [8]
Rebecca and Eliezer at the Well

Architecture

Villa Doccia, near Fiesole
Villa dei Collazzi, in Giogoli

References

Freedberg, Sydney J. (1993). "Painting in Italy, 1500-1600". Pelican History of Art. Penguin Books Ltd. pp. 620–625.

Gauvin Alexnader Bailey, Between Renaissance and Baroque: Jesuit Art in Rome, 1565-1610 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2003), pp.28-30.
San Marco, Florence [1]
[2]
[3]
F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, (1681-1728) 2, pp. 540-544., ed. by F. Ranalli, Florence 1845-1847.
*Bryan, Michael (1889). Walter Armstrong & Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume II: L-Z). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. p. 179.
Wittkower, Rudolf (1999) Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750 Yale Univ. Press.