# Carlo Maratta

Carlo Maratta or Maratti (18 May 1625 – 15 December 1713) was an Italian Baroque painter and draughtsman, active principallly in Rome where he was the leading painter in the second half of the 17th century. He was a fresco and canvas painter who painted in a wide range of genres, including history and portrait painting. He is the leading representative of the classicizing style in the Italian Late Baroque. He worked for prominent clients in Rome, including various popes.

## Biography

The principal contemporary source on Maratta's life is the biography written by his friend, Giovanni Pietro Bellori published in 1732 in Rome under the title Vita di Carlo Maratti pittore (Life of the painter Carlo Maratti). Maratta was born on 18 May 1625 in Camerano (Marche), then part of the Papal States, as the son of Tommaso and Faustina Masini. He moved to Rome in 1636 in the company of family friend Don Corintio Benicampi, secretary to Taddeo Barberini who was a nephew of pope Urbano VIII and brother of Cardinals Francesco Barberini and Antonio Barberini. He had been encouraged to do so by the painter Andrea Camassei, who had seen the young Maratta's drawings. In Rome he was then hosted by his half-brother Bernabeo Francioni, an unsuccessful painter.
He soon became an apprentice in the workshop of Andrea Sacchi. He developed a close relationship with Sacchi and would remain in his workshop until his master's death in 1661. In 1636 a debate between Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona, then the leading Roman painters, took place at the Accademia di San Luca, the academy of artists in Rome. Sacchi argued that paintings should only have a few figures which should express the narrative whereas Cortona countered that a greater number of figures allowed for the development of sub themes. Maratta's painting at this time was close to the classicism espoused by Sacchi and was far more restrained and composed than the Baroque exuberance of Pietro da Cortona’s paintings. Like Sacchi, his paintings were inspired by the works of the great painters from Parma and Bologna: Annibale Carracci, Guercino, Guido Reni, Francesco Albani, and Giovanni Lanfranco.
His fresco of Constantine ordering the Destruction of Pagan Idols (1648) for the Baptistery of the Lateran, based on designs by Sacchi, gained him attention as an artist. His first prominent independent work was the Adoration of the Shepherds (1650) for the church of San Giuseppe di Falegnami. Another major work from this period was The Mystery of the Trinity Revealed to St. Augustine (c. 1655) painted for the church of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori.
Pope Alexander VII (reigned 1655–1667) commissioned many paintings from him including The Visitation (1656) for Santa Maria della Pace and the Nativity in the gallery of the Quirinal Palace where he worked under the direction of Cortona who selected him for this task. His pictures of the late 1650s exhibit light and movement derived from Roman Baroque painting, combined with classical idealism.
From 1660, he built a private client base of wealthy patrons throughout Europe. His workshop became the most prominent art studio in Rome of his time and, after the death of Bernini in 1680, he became the leading artist in Rome. In 1664, he became the director of the Accademia di San Luca and, concerned with elevating the status of artists, promoted the study and drawing of the art of Classical Antiquity. During the 1670s he was commissioned by Pope Clement X to fresco the ceiling of the salone in the Palazzo Altieri. The iconographic programme for The Triumph of Clemency (dated 1674) in this Roman palace was devised by Bellori. The fresco represents an allegorical glorification of pope Clement X Altieri and his nephews, which in a play on his name celebrates a central personification of Clementia, the Roman goddess of mercy. Around her twines an allegorical composition that immortalizes the pope's happy and peaceful reign. Unlike the nave fresco in the nearby church of the Gesu which Giovan Battista Gaulli was painting at the same time, Maratta did not employ illusionistic effects. His scene remained within its frame and used few figures in line with the principles of sparsity of figures championed by Sacchi.
His major works of this period include: The Appearance of the Virgin to St. Philip Neri (c. 1675) now in the Pitti Palace in Florence, The Virgin with Saints Carlo Borromeo and Ignatius of Loyola, and Angels (c. 1685) for the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (c. 1675) and The Assumption of the Virgin with Doctors of the Church (1686) for the Cybo Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo. It was not, as his critics claimed, numerous depictions of the Virgin that earned him the nickname Carluccio delle Madonne or ‘Little Carlo of the Madonnas', but his gifted interpretation of this theme. Other works included an altarpiece, The Death of St Francis Xavier (1674–79) in the San Francesco Xavier Chapel in the right transept of the Church of the Gesu.
Maratta was a well-known portrait painter. He painted Sacchi (c. 1655, Prado), Cardinal Antonio Barberini (c. 1660 Palazzo Barberini), Pope Clement IX (1669, Vatican Pinacoteca) and various self-portraits (Uffizi]], Florence (1682) and Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels (c. 1695)). He also painted numerous English sitters during their visits to Rome on the Grand Tour, having sketched antiquities for John Evelyn as early as 1645.
In 1679 or 1680, his mistress, Francesca Gommi (or Gomma) gave birth to their daughter Faustina. He legally recognized her as his daughter in 1698 and upon becoming a widower in 1700, Maratta married the girl's mother. His daughter's features were incorporated into a number of Maratta's late paintings. She later married the poet Giambattista Felice Zappi and became a prominent poet and member of the Academy of Arcadia
In 1704, Maratta was knighted by Pope Clement XI.
With a general decline in patronage around the beginning of the eighteenth century and largely due to the economic downturn, Maratta turned his hand to the restoration of paintings, including works by Raphael and Carracci. His designs of sculptures included figures of the Apostles for San Giovanni in Laterano. He continued to run his studio into old age even when he could no longer paint.
Maratta died in 1713 in Rome, and was buried there in Santa Maria degli Angeli.