Baldassare Peruzzi

Painter and architect; born in Ancaiano, near Siena and spent most of his productive career in Rome; over 500 drawings (mostly architectural) are in the Gabinetto dei Disegni, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence; buried next to Raphael in the Pantheon, Rome

Architect and painter, b. Siena, 1481 (bapt. 7 Mar.), d. Rome, 6 Jan. 1536. Paid for (lost) frescoes in Cappella di S. Giovanni in Siena Cathedral, 1501. Frescoes in apse of S. Onofrio, Rome, between 1502/3 and 1506. Vasari says that Peruzzi painted historical scenes in chiaroscuro in the Castello at Ostia, assisted by Cesare da Sesto. Architect of Villa Farnesina: building completed by 1510; frescoes in Sala del Fregio, Sala di Galatea (vault and lunette of gigantic head, completed apparently by middle of 1511) and Salone delle Prospettive. According to Vasari, Peruzzi anticipated Polidoro da Caravaggio in painting façades in chiaroscuro. The grisailles (early) on the ceiling of the Stanza d'Eliodoro in the Vatican, as well as the four main scenes (finished by 1511), have been plausibly attributed to him on stylistic grounds. Ponzetti Chapel in S. Maria della Pace, dated 1516, and fresco of the 'Presentation' in the same church. Appointed architect of S. Peter's in succession to Raphael, with Antonio da San Gallo as his collaborator, 1 Aug. 1520. Oval paintings on vault of Villa Madama loggia, probably between 1520 and 1523. Late 1521 (?) invited to Bologna in connection with the completion of the façade of S. Petronio; payments for this are dated 1522 and 1523 (see 1898,0328.1, one of his designs for the façade). While in Bologna made cartoon of 'Adoration of the Magi' for G. B. Bentivoglio (National Gallery). Designed tomb of Adrian VI (d. Sept. 1523) in S. Maria dell'Anima, and furnished designs for Siena Cathedral doors (payment 1523) and Jubilee medal of Clement VII in the same year (drawing in Weld Collection, Lulworth). Captured in Sack of Rome; ransomed and in Siena by July 1527 and soon after appointed architect to the Sienese Republic by which he was mainly employed on fortifications. Architect of Siena Cathedral, 1529. In Rome 1530/1 and again for a short time joint architect of S. Peter's. Returned to Siena 1531. Additions to Villa of Belcaro, near Siena, including loggia and chapel which he frescoed. Finally left Siena by January 1535 and was in Rome by the following March, when payments to him as architect of S. Peter's were resumed. The most important architectural work of his last years to be realized was the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome. Much of Serlio's 'Libri dell'Architettura' (Venice, 1537, etc.) was based on Peruzzi's ideas, as the author himself admits.
Paintings by Peruzzi which should be noted are: 'Portrait of a Monk' (repr. as Sebastiano del Piombo by Pallucchini, Sebastian Viniziano, pl. 32); 'Dance of the Muses with Apollo', Florence, Pitti (as Giulio Romano; our attribution to Peruzzi is supported by the inscription on an early seventeenth-century engraving by Philippe Thomassin); 'Nativity', Pouncey Collection, London (repr. J. Pope-Hennessy, 'Burlington', lxxxviii (1946), p. 236) and its companion, the 'Coronation of the Virgin', present whereabouts unknown (formerly in the Sebright Collection, sale Christie, 1937, 2 July, lot 116, as Penni). Old Testament subjects, painted for Cardinal Raffaello Riario (d. 1521) in lunettes in a room in the Cancelleria (one repr., as early Perino del Vaga, in 'Paragone', viii (1957), no. 87, pl. 10).