Accademia di San Luca
St. Luke Displaying a Painting of the Virgin by Guercino | |
Named after | St. Luke |
---|---|
Formation | 1577 |
Founded at | Rome |
Type | Association of artists |
Purpose | Elevating the work of "artists" |
Leader | Federico Zuccari |
Secessions | Accademia Nazionale di San Luca |
Formerly called | Compagnia di San Luca |
The Accademia di San Luca, (the "Academy of Saint Luke") was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome (under the directorship of Federico Zuccari from 1593[1]), with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. Other founders included Girolamo Muziano and . The Academy was named after Saint Luke the evangelist who, legend has it, made a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and thus became the patron saint of painters' guilds.
From the late 16th century until it moved to its present location at the Palazzo Carpegna, it was based in an urban block by the Roman Forum and although these buildings no longer survive, the Academy church of Santi Luca e Martina, does. Designed by the Baroque architect, Pietro da Cortona, its main facade overlooks the Forum.
History[]
The Academy's predecessor was the Compagnia di San Luca, a guild of painters and miniaturists, which had its statutes and privileges renewed at the much earlier date of 17 December 1478 by Pope Sixtus IV. Included among its founding members, was the famous painter Melozzo da Forlì, as he was the pictor papalis in that period.
In 1605, Pope Paul V granted the Academy the right to pardon a condemned man on the feast of St. Luke. In the 1620s, Urban VIII extended its rights to decide who was considered an artist in Rome and it came under the patronage of his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini. In 1633, Urban VIII gave it the right to tax all artists as well as art-dealers, and monopolize all public commissions. These latter measures raised strong opposition and apparently were poorly enforced.[2]
Over the early years, the papal authorities exerted a large degree of control over the leadership of the institution. Some modern critics have stated "with the ostensible purpose of giving artists a higher education and the real one of asserting the Church's control over art,".[3]
The prìncipi (directors) of the institution have included some of the pre-eminent painters of the 17th century, including Domenichino, Bernini, Cortona and Romanelli. However, many prominent artists never joined or were admitted to the academy.
The Cortona-Sacchi Debate and other artistic issues[]
Artistic issues debated within the Academy included the Cortona-Sacchi controversy (see Andrea Sacchi for further details of this debate) about the number of figures in a painting. Disdain was expressed by many academicians for the Bamboccianti.[4]
Giovanni Bellori gave famous lectures on painting in the Academy. In the early 18th century, the painter Marco Benefial was inducted, and then expelled for criticizing the academy as an insider.
Recent times[]
The Academy is still active; the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca is its modern descendant. From the very beginning, the statutes of the Academy directed that each candidate-academician was to donate a work of his art in perpetual memory and, later, a portrait. Thus the Academy, in its current premises in the 16th-century Palazzo Carpegna, located in the Piazza dell'Accademia di San Luca, has accumulated a unique collection of paintings and sculptures, including about 500 portraits, as well as an outstanding collection of drawings.
Principi[]
Prominent artists to become Principe of the academy over the first 200 years include:
- Federico Zuccari, 1593
- Tommaso Laureti, 1595
- Giovanni De Vecchi, 1596
- Cesare Nebbia, 1597
- Durante Alberti, 1598
- Flaminio Vacca, 1599
- Cavalier d'Arpino, 1600, 1616, 1629
- Girolamo Massei, 1603
- Pietro Bernini, 1605, 1606
- Paolo Guidotti, 1607, 1620
- Gaspare Celio, 1609
- Cherubino Alberti, 1611–1613
- Ottavio Leoni, 1614–1615, 1627
- Giovanni Baglione, 1617–1619
- Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1621, 1630
- Agostino Ciampelli, 1623
- Antiveduto Gramatica, 1624
- Virginia Vezzi, 1624
- Simon Vouet, 1624–1627
- Baldassare Croce, 1628
- Domenichino, 1629
- Giovanni Lanfranco, 1631, 1632
- Francesco Mochi, 1633
- Pietro da Cortona, 1634–1636
- Alessandro Turchi, 1637, 1638
- Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, 1639
- Alessandro Algardi, 1640
- Girolamo Rainaldi, 1641–1643
- , 1645–1647
- Giovanni Battista Soria, 1648–1650
- Luigi Gentile da Bruxelles, 1651–1653
- , 1654
- Bernardino Gagliardi, 1655–1658
- Nicolas Poussin, 1657 (resigned)
- Raffaello Vanni, 1658–1660
- , 1661
- Pier Francesco Mola, 1662, 1663
- Carlo Maratta, 1664–1665, 1699, 1706–1713
- Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi 1666
- Melchiorre Cafà, 1667 (declined)
- Orfeo Boselli, 1667
- Pietro del Pò
- Giacinto Brandi 1669, 1684
- Domenico Guidi, 1670, 1675
- Giovanni Maria Morandi, 1671, 1680, 1685
- Charles Errard, 1672, 1678
- Carlo Rainaldi, 1673
- Giovan Battista Gaulli, 1674
- Carlo Cesi, 1675
- Charles Le Brun, 1676–1677
- Lazzaro Baldi, 1679
- Mattia de Rossi, 1681, 1693
- Luigi Garzi, 1682
- Giovanni Battista Contini, 1683, 1719
- Filippo Lauri, 1686 (resigned)
- Carlo Fontana, 1686, 1694
- Ludovico Gimignani 1688
- Giovan Battista Boncori, 1698
- Charles-François Poerson, 1714, 1718
- Benedetto Luti, 1720
- Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari, 1723–1725
- , 1726
- Camillo Rusconi, 1727, 1728
- Sebastiano Conca, 1729, 1739
- , 1734, 1742
- Agostino Masucci, 1736–1738
- Jean-François de Troy, 1744
- Giovanni Battista Maini, 1746, 1747
- , 1748
- Francesco Mancini, 1750–1751
- Filippo della Valle, 1752, 1760–1761
- Ferdinando Fuga, 1753–1754
- Giovanni Paolo Pannini, 1755
- Pietro Bracci, 1756
- , 1757
- Placido Costanzi, 1758
- , 1762
- , 1764–1766, 1777–1778
- , 1767, 1779–1780
- Anton Raphael Mengs, 1771–1772
- Carlo Marchionni, 1773
- , 1781
- Anton von Maron, 1784
- , 1787–1789
- Antonio Asprucci, 1790
- Tommaso Conca, 1793
- Vincenzo Pacetti, 1796, 1800, 1801
- Andrea Vici, 1802
- Vincenzo Camuccini, 1806–1810
- Antonio Canova, 1811 (permanent principe 1814 to 1822)
- Gaspare Landi, 1817–1820
- , 1820–1822
- , 1823
- Vincenzo Camuccini, 1826
- Bertel Thorvaldsen, 1827–1828
- , 1829
- Andrea Pozzi, 1830–1831
- , 1832
- Tommaso Minardi, 1837
- , 1841–1843
- Luigi Poletti, 1849–1853
- Filippo Agricola, 1854–1855
- Virginio Vespignani, 1870, 1876–1877
- Nicola Consoni, 1878, 1883
- , 1899, 1900
Claude Lorrain was a member but declined the offer of being Principe. The Academy can also boast modern members, including sculptors Ernesto Biondi and Piccirilli Brothers.
External links[]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Accademia di San Luca, Rome. |
- Accademia Nazionale di San Luca Official site (in Italian)
- Galleria Nazionale di San Luca (in Italian)
- Accademia San Luca (in Italian)
- The History of the Accademia di San Luca, c. 1590–1635: Documents from the Archivio di Stato di Roma (in English and Italian)
References[]
- ^ Goldstein, Carl – Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 30. ISBN 0-521-55988-X
- ^ Haskell, Francis (1993) [1980]. "Chapter 8". Patrons and Painters: Art and Society in Baroque Italy. Yale University Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0-300-02540-8.
- ^ according to Peter Robb, biographer of the Baroque artist Caravaggio
- ^ Roworth, Wendy Wassyng (1 January 1981). "A Date for Salvator Rosa's Satire on Painting and the Bamboccianti in Rome". The Art Bulletin. 63 (4): 611–617. doi:10.2307/3050166. JSTOR 3050166.
- Art schools in Italy
- Educational institutions established in the 1570s
- Education in Rome
- Culture in Rome
- Renaissance Rome
- 1577 establishments in Italy
- Members of the Rome Guild of Saint Luke
- Learned societies of Italy
- Rome R. II Trevi