Polidoro da Caravaggio

Painter. Polidoro Caldara, b. Caravaggio (Lombardy) 1490/1500, d. Messina probably 1536/7. According to Vasari, discovered at the age of eighteen working as a labourer in the 'Logge' (decorated c. 1517-19), which he then helped to paint; subsequently, in collaboration with the Florentine, Maturino (d. 1528) and inspired by the example of Peruzzi, decorated innumerable façades with grisaille friezes. Surviving Roman works include: façades of the Palazzo Ricci, Palazzo Milesi (via della Maschera d'Oro), and the Casino del Bufalo (these last detached and now in the Museo di Roma), frescoes in S. Silvestro al Quirinale and four oblong scenes from Roman history in the Villa Lante (these last removed to the Hertziana). After the Sack of Rome he fled to Naples and thence to Messina where 'inter alia' he designed decorations for the entry of Charles V (1535). Surviving pictures include: 'Incredulity of S. Thomas' (London, F.Matthiesen Coll.); 'S. Albert the Carmelite' (Turin, Galleria Sabauda, as Tanzio da Varallo); panels with putti, etc. (Hampton Court); 'Christ carrying the Cross' (from SS. Annunziata, Messina, now Capodimonte, Naples: modelli at Capodimonte and London, Pouncey Coll.); 'Nativity and Pentecost' (modelli, Capodimonte); 'The Crossing of the Red Sea' (Earl of Ellesmere Coll., repr. 'Burlington', lxxiv (193c), p. 32, as El Greco).