Pietro da cortana biography examples

Early Days

Born Pietro Berrettini and brought up in Cortona by the Florentine Andrea Commodi, in 1612 he accompanied the latter to Rome at a time when the artistic life of the city, during the reign of Pope Paul V, was rich in contrasts and many different styles.

To begin with, Pietro was too busy making drawings from Trajan's Column and other classical remains, or from Raphael of Polidoro, to be aware of other influences such as Caravaggism. However, about 1620, his first patron the Marquis Marcello Sacchetti introduced him to Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657) - secretary to Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597-1669) and patron of the French classicist Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) - from whom Cortona acquired the taste for classical antiquity which was to mark his work for the rest of his life.

He learned, too, of the change that painting had undergone between 1620 and 1630, as exemplified by the Baroque manner of Giovanni Lanfranco (1582-16