Studies in Perino Del Vaga's Early Career. (Volumes I and II) (Raphael, Rome, Italy).

Proceeding from the thesis that Perino del Vaga was the preeminent fresco painter in Medicean Rome and Raphael's successor this field in the 1520s, this study examines the artist's career from his Florentine beginnings through his earliest independent commissions. Chapter I considers his training and activity in the workshop of Ridolfo Ghirl and aio and the significance of Perino's Florentine heritage for his later manner. The artist's move to Rome, his adoption into Raphael's circle, and the nature of Perino's association with Giovanni da Udine as well as with Raphael himself are also discussed with a focus on the Vatican Logge campaign. The following chapter on the Sala dei Pontefici decoration addresses the astrological, personal, and political content of the program, its relation to the Sala di Costantino cycle, the division of labor between Perino and Giovanni da Udine, and Raphael's possible involvement in the enterprise. Chapter III deals with the Palazzo Baldassini cycle, reconstructing the original appearance of the salone and reidentifying the subjects of many of the individual frescoes. Emphasis is given to the status and vocation of the patron as the interpretive key for recovering the original meaning of this decoration. The Pucci Chapel frescoes in Trinita dei Monti are treated in the following chapter. Documentary evidence favoring an earlier dating is presented, and stylistic features are explicated against the dual backdrop of the patron's Florentine ties and critical attitudes on the function of painting current in 16th-century curial circles. The iconographic content of the Marian cycle is also analyzed. Chapter V considers minor commissions and lost works from the first years of Perino's early Roman period. Questions addressed in the conclusion include the nature and status of Perino's patrons, his collaborative efforts with Giovanni da Udine and Polidoro da Caravaggio following the partial dissolution of Raphael's workshop in 1520, his competing claim with Giulio Romano to the title of Raphael's heir, and the extent to which his earlier association with the master accounts for Perino's monopoly over major commissions for monumental fresco cycles in the years between Raphael's death and the Sack of Rome.PhDFine artsUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/161485/1/8712242.pd