- Also known as
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Agostino Tassi
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primary name: Tassi, Agostino
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other name: Buonamica, Andrea
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other name: Il Pellicciarino
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; Roman; Italian; Male
- Life dates
- 1580-1644
- Biography
- Painter: Perugia, Rome. b. Ponzano Romano as Agostino Buonamici c. 1580, d. Rome 1644
As a young boy he entered the services of the Marchese Tassi in Rome, and later adopted his master's name. He transferred to Florence c. 1600, where he is thought to have trained with Giulio Parigi (1571-1635). Frescoes on the façades of several houses in Livorno (1602) and a painted frieze in Livorno Cathedral represent his earliest recorded works. In 1608 he contributed to the ephemeral decorations erected in honour of the wedding of Cosimo II de' Medici and Maria Maddalena of Austria, and two years later he was back in Rome, engaged on the decoration of the Palazzo Firenze under the supervision of Ludovico Cigoli (1559-1613) (1610; destroyed).
Cigoli probably provided the young artist with an entrée to the Borghese, who were to become Tassi's major patrons. Pope Paul V Borghese commissioned work in the Palazzo Quirinale, where Tassi collaborated with Lanfranco (q.v.) and Carlo Saraceni (c. 1579-1620) on the frieze of the Sala de' Corazzieri (formerly Sala Regia) (1611-12 and 1616-17), for which see 1963,0209.2. Tassi painted the overall perspectival scheme, showing openings into imaginary rooms and fictive balconies, while Lanfranco and Saraceni were responsible for the larger figures inhabiting the design. It established him as a specialist in 'quadratura' painting which was to make up the bulk of his subsequent commissions. Tassi also painted a frieze with scenes from the 'Life of the St Paul' (1616) in the Stanza di S.Paolo of the Palazzo Quirinale, which reveals the influence of Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610) and Paul Bril (c. 1554-1626).
Tassi's collaborative projects include a room in the Palazzo Costaguti, where he provided the fictive architectural surround to Domenichino's 'Time and Truth', and the vault of the central room in the Casino dell' Aurora at the Villa Ludovisi, Rome, where he painted the decorative framework for Guercino's 'Aurora' (1621). Tassi also worked extensively in the Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome (1617-23); his latest recorded work is a frieze containing coastal scenes with shipwrecked boats, putti and landscapes in the Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj, Rome (1635).
The 'Arrival of the Queen of Sheba before Solomon' (Burghley House) and 'Palaces on a Sea Shore', c.1622, Galleria Pallavicini, Rome, are the only two easel paintings unanimously attributed to Tassi.
- Bibliography
- Turner 1999
