Daniele da Volterra
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Daniele da Volterra (Volterra, c. 1509 - Rome, April 4 1566), also known as Daniele Ricciarelli, was an Italian mannerist painter and sculptor; he is best remembered for covering , for better or worse, the genitals in Michelangelo's Last Judgement with vestments, earning him the nickname "Il Braghettone" ("the Breeches maker").
Biography
As a boy, he initially studied with the Sienese artists Bazzi 'Il Sodoma' and Baldassare Peruzzi, but he was not well received and left. He appears to have accompanied the latter to Rome in 1535, and helped paint the frescoes in the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne. Later he became an apprentice to Perino de Vega.In Rome he started working in the circle of and befriending Michelangelo, who used his influence with Pope Paul III to secure Daniele commissions, and the post of superintendent of the works of the Vatican, a position he retained until the Pope's death in 1549. Michelangelo also provided him with sketches on which Daniele based some of his paintings, especially for his series in one of the chapels of the Trinita dei Monti.
His first major commission came in 1541, when he was asked to decorate with frescoes the Cappella Orsini in the Trinità dei Monti in Rome. There his most famous painting is located, the Descent from the Cross (circa 1545), after drawings by Michelangelo. By an excess of praise the "Descent from the Cross", was at one time grouped with the "Transfiguration" of Raphael and the "Last Communion" of Domenichino, as the most famous pictures in Rome.
Daniele's two-sided painting of David killing Goliath (c.1555) in the Louvre too seems to have been based on Michelangelo's designs; for a long time it was attributed to him.
Other notable works include the Massacre of the Innocents (1557) in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, a portrait he drew of Michelangelo and a bust he made from Michelangelo's death mask.
Volterra was commissioned by Paul III to complete the decoration of the Sala Regia.
On the death of the pope in 1549 he lost his position as superintendent of the works of the Vatican and the pension to which it entitled him. He then devoted himself chiefly to sculpture.
His "Victory of David over Goliath" now in the Louvre, is so good that for years it was attributed to Michelangelo.
His work is distinguished by beauty of colouring, clearness, excellent composition, vigorous truth, and curiously strange oppositions of light and shade. Where he approaches closely to Michelangelo, he is an artist of great importance; where he partakes of the sweetness of Sodoma, he becomes full of mannerisms, and possesses a certain exaggerated prettiness. An author said: "He exaggerates Michelangelo's peculiarities, treads on the dangerous heights of sublimity, and, not possessing his master's calm manner, is apt to slip down." His position in present-day criticism is very different to what was given to him a generation ago, and more nearly approaches to a truthful view of his art.
He died in Rome, 1566.
The loincloths in Michelangelo's Last Judgment
Daniele is infamous for having covered over, with vestments and fig-leafs many of the genitals in the Last Judgement fresco on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. This work was begun at the request of Pope Pius IV in 1565, shortly after the Council of Trent had condemned nudity in religious art. It earned Daniele the nickname "Il Braghettone" ("the breeches-maker"). Daniele also chiseled away a part of the fresco: he removed and repainted the larger part of Saint Catherine and the entire figure of Saint Blaise behind her, because in the original version Blaise had appeared to look at her naked backside.
He did not, however, paint the loincloths and draperies in the lower half of the fresco. Daniele's work on the Last Judgment was interrupted at the end of 1565 by the death of Pius IV, after which the scaffolding he used had to be removed quickly because the chapel was needed for the election of a new pope.
Sources and references
- Fabrizio Mancinelli, The Painting of the Last Judgment: History, Technique and Restoration. In Loren Partridge, Michelangelo : The Last Judgement - A Glorious Restoration. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2000. ISBN 0810981904.
- This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia.
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External links
- [Bust of Michelangelo], Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
- [Massacre of the Innocents], Uffizi, Florence.
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