Giovanni Giacomo Barbelli

Giovanni Giacomo Barbelli (17 April 1604 – 12 July 1656) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active in Brescia.

Biography

He was born in Offanengo, near Crema. In the young age he learned the art of drawing and painting in Naples. Having returned to his homeland soon, he began to work in his own city, later passing to other Lombard centers, where, by alternately treating the technique of oil painting and fresco, he demonstrated skill in drawing and often brilliant color. He painted vaults and walls of stately rooms with a high spirit of inventive imagination and perspective knowledge.[1] He is mentioned as a mentor of Evaristo Baschenis.[2] Among his works are a Nativity altarpiece for the sanctuary of Nostra Signora della Brughiera in Bulliana in the province of Biella. He also painted two altarpieces, a Crucifixion and a Circumcision (attributed) for the Sanctuary della Madonna del Pianto in Ono Degno, near Pertica Bassa.[3] He painted history scenes into quadratura by Domenico Ghislandi for the Palazzo Terzi[4] as well as for the Palazzo Moroni (1649–1654) in Bergamo.[5] Barbello frescoed Glory of the Magdalen and scenes from her life in the presbytery and apse for the church of Santa Maria Maddalena, Cremona.

Bryan comments on a G.G. Barbella born in 1590 in Cremona. He is almost certainly the same artist. He painted an altarpiece of San Lazzaro for the church of that name in Bergamo.[6] One of his pupils was Giovanni Battista Botticchio.[7]

He died on 2 July 1656 in Calcinato (Brescia), hit by an arquebus shot during a festival.[1]

Artistic Activity

Among his early works we remember the frescoes with episodes of the life of St. Giorgio (16 11), in the old church of Casaletto Vaprio, and the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary, frescoed (1611-1618) in the oratory of St. Rocco in Montodine.

Dated 1631 is an altarpiece with the Saints Rocco and Sebastiano in the parish church of Madignano (Crema). Around 1635-38 he painted two important fresco cycles in Crema, in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie and in that of St. Giovanni Decollato.

In 1636 he executed a lively self-portrait in the act of playing the guitar with a gorgeous gentleman's dress. A decade later he painted the altarpiece with The Virgin in Glory and Saints (completed in 1646) in the church of S. Lazzaro in Bergamo.

In the years 1647-49 Barbelli made the vast fresco decorations in the vaults of the staircase and some rooms in the palace of the Counts Moroni in Bergamo, together with the painter G. B. Azzola, who was his first student.

In Bergamo and in the Bergamasco he carried out his major activity, painting figures for churches, generally of considerable size. For St. Rocco he executed a shovel with St. Fermo and St. Antonio, in the great church of St. Agostino, for the Angelini chapel, Two Stories of Miracles of St. Nicola, now passed to the parish church of St. Andrea after the suppression of the Augustinian church.

He also left other paintings in the sacred buildings of the Bergamasco: in Gandino an altarpiece dedicated to the St. Trinity; in Lovere, in the ancient church of St. Maria di Valvendra, a St. Francis of Assisi, and a large painting depicting the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. In the Pinacoteca Tadini, still in Lovere, there are Dead Christ between the Madonna and Mary Magdalene and St. Michael.

Altarpieces are found in Ss. Faustino and Giovita in Brescia and in the parishes of Quintano (Cremona) and of Ombriano (Com di di Crema).

Before he set about the larger decorative works of the Terzi and Moroni palazzos of Bergamo and the rooms of the castle of Cavemago, Barbelli had already given proof of his perspectival ability and of his qualities as a painter in the halls of Crema and Cremasco buildings: in the villa Tensini (now Sabadini) in S. Maria della Croce, in the Premoli palace in Crema and in the villa Vimercati Sanseverino (formerly Benzoni) in Vaiano Cremasco.[1]

References

  • Ticozzi, Stefano (1830). Dizionario degli architetti, scultori, pittori, intagliatori in rame ed in pietra, coniatori di medaglie, musaicisti, niellatori, intarsiatori d’ogni etá e d’ogni nazione' (Volume 1). Gaetano Schiepatti; Digitized by Googlebooks, Jan 24, 2007. p. 108.
  1. 1 2 3 Angelini, Luigi. "Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 6 (1964)". Treccani. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
  2. ↑ Baschenis Still Lifes: A Stirring Silent Opera by Souren Melikian International Herald Tribune; Saturday, February 17, 2001.
  3. ↑ Comune di pertica bassa Archived 2007-08-06 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Gian Giacomo Barbelli, dipinti e disegni (1976) Marcel Roethlisberger. The Art Bulletin 1976 58(4): pages 624-5.
  5. ↑ Palazzo Moroni.
  6. ↑ Bryan, Michael (1886). Robert Edmund Graves, ed. Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (Volume I: A-K). York St. #4, Covent Garden, London; Original from Fogg Library, Digitized May 18, 2007: George Bell and Sons. p. 79.
  7. ↑ Pinacoteca Orzi Nuovi Archived 2015-02-16 at the Wayback Machine., biography of Botttichio.


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