Antonio Vassilacchi

Antonio Vassilacchi (Italian pronunciation: [anˈtɔːnjo vassiˈlakki]; Greek: Αντώνιος Βασιλάκης, romanized: Antonios Vasilakis; 1556–1629),^[1] also called L'Aliense, was a Greek^[2] painter, who was active mostly in Venice and the Veneto.

Biography

Antonio Vassilacchi was born of

He died young, however, before having established a career. Vassilacchi also had two daughters who entered the Nunnery of Santa Chiara (for which Vassilacchi had painted an Annunciation), though it is not known whether they were from his first or second marriage. His second wife, Giacomina, made her will on November 2, 1609, and died six days later. Vassilacchi's last marriage was his most unfortunate. Carlo Ridolfi, his biographer and student,^[9] describes a painting by the artist in which he portrays himself carrying his wife, her nurse, her uncle and her son by her previous marriage, on his back. Vassilacchi used to show this picture to his friends and say "This is the burden I'll bear till I die".

Aliense died on Easter's eve, 1629, in his seventy-third year. He was buried with honours in the church of San Vitale two days later. San Vitale is the church on the same square as Vassilacchi's house and he had painted there, a few years earlier (and both aptly named), a Resurrection' and an Ascension.

His entry in the official Venetian register reads: 1629, 15 April. Sire Antonio Aliense, painter, aged about 73 years, sick of fever and

.

Works

His works in the

Sala del Maggior Consiglio), the Voting Hall (Sala dello Scrutinio), the Hall of the Senate (Sala del Senato), the Hall of the Council of Ten (Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci), the Hall of the Compass (Sala della Bussola

).

In 1586, Vassilacchi was asked to paint one of his largest pictures, the 'Resurrection', in the chancel of

Domenico Cresti

, the painter of the Crucifixion in the same church. The paintings, restored in 1958, still hang in the same place, across from each other above the marble high altar of the church.

In 1591 Vassilacchi was engaged by the Brotherhood of Merchants (Scuola dei Mercanti), and some time later he was working in the church of

San Zaccaria

, at least four large works by Aliense are preserved.

In 1559 the

Palladio to execute the work but at the time of his death, twenty one years later, it was still unfinished. The abbot then summoned Vassilacchi to select the best, in his opinion, preliminary design for the central altar of the church.

Naturally modest and polite, Aliense had a good word to say about all the sketches, which complicated rather than simplified matters. In the end, the up to then judge was asked to design something himself. His sketch was immediately accepted and from it was created the large bronze group of the Four Evangelists Supporting the World and God.

In 1594, Aliense, recommended by the Benedictines of San Giorgio Maggiore, undertook to paint the circle of pictures that consist the Life of Christ for the church of San Pietro in Perugia, which belonged to the same Order. The ten paintings still survive in their original setting, together with his monumental "Apotheosis of the Benedictine Order" which, at 88 square metres (947 square feet), is the second biggest painting in Italy.

In 1602 Antonio Vassilacchi began painting in the cathedral church at Salò, while his surviving work—mainly decorative—in the Villa Barbarigo, of the senator Giovanni Barbarigo at Noventa Vicentina, near Montagnana, is impressive.

His last, in all probability, works are those painted in Santa Maria in Vanzo, Padua.

Gallery

• 
  The Virgin Arriving at the Church of San Zaccaria 1600
• 
  Church of San Zaccaria, Venice: Marriage of the Virgin, 1600
• 
  Woman Praying for Forgiveness
• 
  Virgin and Child with the shepherds, 17 century.
• 
  Virgin and Child, 17 century
• 
  Saint Gregory with Saints 1600
• 
  Self-portrait
• 
  Carlo Lasinio, after Antonio Vassilacchi
• 
  Peace and Justice

References

1. ^ Haris Makrykostas: Antonio Vassilacchi, A Greek Painter in Italy, Athens (1st Edition 1993, 2nd Edition 2008) ISBN 978-960-92651-1-9
2. ^
   OCLC 1511123
   . Benedictine order, executed in 1592-94 by Antonio Vassilacchi, suruamed L'Aliense, a Greek painter from Melos, pupil of Tintoretto and Paolo
3. OCLC 21800001
   . Antonio Vassilacchi, called the Aliense, was a Greek by birth, a native of Milo, who came to Venice
4. OCLC 3780090
   . Aliense was born on the island of Milo, of Greek parents, and went to Venice when young.
5. OCLC 21572
   . (Antonio Vassilacchi). Painter in Venice of Greek descent (1556-1629)
6. ISBN 0-333-76094-8
   . painter of Greek descent. He arrived in Venice not later than 1571, when his father was supplying provisions to die Venetian fleet.
7. ^
   ISBN 978-1-906261-13-9
   . Vassilacchi, alias Aliense, a Greek contemporary of El Greco
8. OCLC 261336841
   . VASSILACCHI, called L'ALI- ENSE (Antonio), a Greek historical painter, born at Milo, a Greek island in the Venetian territory, in 1556, and died in 1629
9. ^ Dictionary of art historians

• Farquhar, Maria (1855). Ralph Nicholson Wornum (ed.). Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters. London: Woodfall & Kinder. p. 193.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Antonio Vassilacchi.

• Aliense
• Antonio Vassilacchi
• (in Italian) Antonio Vassilacchi^{[permanent dead link]}