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- Francesco Salviati
- Also known as
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Francesco Salviati
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primary name: Salviati, Francesco
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other name: Rossi, Francesco de'
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; Florentine; Italian; Male
- Life dates
- 1510-1563
- Biography
- Painter. Francesco de'Rossi, called Francesco Salviati. Most of his career in Rome after 1531, though with periods in Florence and north Italy 1539-48, and in France 1554-6.
Sometimes also called Cecchino Salviati - the name Salviati comes from that of his patron Cardinal Giovanni Salviati who took him into his service in 1531 after his arrival in Rome. Peripatetic throughout his career, Salviati was first a pupil in Florence of Andrea del Sarto (q.v.), but after a period of less than two years went to Rome, where he was much influenced by the Roman works of Michelangelo (q.v.) and Raphael (q.v.) as well as by the works of Perino del Vaga (1501-47) and Parmigianino (1503-40): his earliest commission, the 'Visitation' of 1537 in the Oratory of S. Giovanni Decollato in Rome, shows how strong were these Roman influences upon him (see T,12.27). In 1539 he was back in Florence where he assisted with the decorations erected for the marriage of Cosimo I de' Medici to Eleonora of Toledo. In 1539-40 he was in Venice in the service of the Grimani family. He returned to Rome in 1541, where he became painter to Pierluigi Farnese, but he eventually left his service and returned to Florence in 1543. In that same year he was commissioned by Cosimo I to decorate the Sala dell'Udienza, in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, the masterpiece of his mature period (see Pp,2.183 and 1946,0713.52), establishing thereby his reputation as one of the foremost decorators of his time. He was back in Rome in 1548 where, from 1552-4, he decorated the Palazzo Sacchetti, another of his finest works. While in Rome, he also painted in the Palazzo Farnese and in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. Although he had been invited to France on several occasions, he did not actually go there until 1554-5 and when he arrived he promptly fell out with a fellow Italian painter, Francesco Primaticcio (1504-70), who was already established at the French Court. On his return to Rome in 1555 he worked again in the Palazzo Farnese.
Salviati is without doubt one of the great geniuses of High Mannerism. His flair for improvising decorations of great complexity was much admired in his own day. The same brilliance is seen in his drawings in the wonderful ease of their execution - in many instances in spite of the intricacy of the subject.
- Bibliography
- Nicholas Turner, Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1986
Luisa Mortari, 'Francesco Salviati', Rome, 1992 (catalogue of paintings, drawings and prints after)
C. Monbeig Goguel, P. Costamagna, and M. Hochmann (eds), 'Francesco Salviati e la Bella Maniera, Actes des colloques de Rome et de Paris (1998)', Rome, 2001