The Lives of the Artists (Bellori)

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The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors, and Architects
Gian Pietro Bellori
Original titleLe vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni
CountryItaly
LanguageItalian
SubjectArtist biographies
PublisherMascardi, Rome (1672)
Publication date
1672, 1728
Published in English
2005 (in full)

The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors, and Architects or Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni is a series of artist biographies written by

Gian Pietro Bellori (1613–96), whom Julius von Schlosser called "the most important historiographer of art not only of Rome, but all Italy, even of Europe, in the seventeenth century".[1] It is one of the foundational texts of the history and criticism of European art.[2]

The first edition (1672) contained biographies of nine painters (

Poussin), two sculptors (François Duquesnoy and Alessandro Algardi), and one architect (Domenico Fontana). The book was dedicated to Jean-Baptiste Colbert and published with French financial support.[3]

Preface

The preface to the Lives is an essay Bellori delivered to the Accademia di San Luca, Rome in 1664. The essay, entitled The Idea of the Painter, the Sculptor and the Architect (L'idea del pittore, dello scultore, e dell'architetto) contributed to a classicist reading of the Lives, as opposed the a book about near-contemporaries.[2]

Editions and translations

Bellori's treatise had an enormous influence throughout Europe. It was summarized in the December 1676 issue of the

Bellori's Vite.[5] Winckelmann's theory of the "ideally beautiful" as he expounds it in Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums, IV.2.33 ff., thoroughly agrees with the content of Bellori's Idea.[6]

Prior to 2005, only the Idea and the biographies of the Carracci,[7] Barocci, Caravaggio[8][9] and Van Dyck had been translated into English.[10] The 2005 translation by Alice Sedgwick Wohl[10] is based on the 1976 Italian edition by Evelina Borea[11] controlled against the editio princeps of 1672[12] and Michelangelo Piacentini's transcription of MS 2506 (one of two copies, ca. 1700) of the Bibliothèque Municipale de Rouen, of the biographies of Guido Reni, Andrea Sacchi and Carlo Maratta.[10]

Bellori was unable to obtain funding for a second edition.[13] The 12 biographies were republished in 1728 in Naples as a pirated edition, with the addition of a biography of Luca Giordano (1632-1705) by an unknown author.[14]

Image Name Publication Page
Annibale Carracci Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 19
Agostino Carracci Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 103
Domenico Fontana Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 141
Federico Barocci Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 169
Caravaggio Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 201
Pieter Paul Rubens
 Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 221
Antoon van Dyck
 Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 253
François Duquesnoy Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 269
Domenichino Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 289
Giovanni Lanfranco Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 365
Alessandro Algardi Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 387
Nicolas Poussin Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, 1672 407

References

  1. ^ Von Schlosser, Julius Ritter (1924). Die Kunstliteratur: Ein Handbuch zur Quellenkunde der neueren Kunstgeschichte. Vienna: Kunstverlag Anton Schroll & Co. p. 423.
  2. ^
    JSTOR 20074653
    .
  3. JSTOR 20478523
    .
  4. ISBN 9780691242910
    .
  5. ISBN 978-0-521-78187-9
    .
  6. ^ Panofsky, Erwin (1968). Idea: a Concept in Art Theory. University of South Carolina Press. p. 242.
  7. ^ Bellori, Giovanni Pietro; Enggass, Catherine (1968). The lives of Annibale & Agostino Carracci. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Retrieved 13 July 2014.
  8. ISBN 9780691003085
    .
  9. ISBN 9780064301282
    .
  10. ^
    ISBN 9780521781879
    .
  11. ^ Borea, Evelina (1976). Le vite de' pittori, scultori e architetti moderni. Turin: G. Einaudi.
  12. ^ Bellori, Giovanni Pietro (1672). Vite de'Pittori, Scultori et Architetti Moderni, Parte Prima. Rome: Mascardi.
  13. JSTOR 20355327
    .
  14. ISBN 9780521782487
    .
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