Giacomo Barucco Biography
BARUCCO, Giacomo. - Born in Rovato (Brescia), apparently in 1582, according to what appears from a 1627 appraisal slip (see Fenaroli, p. 18), he was active as a painter in Brescia. He acted in the environment of late mannerism in Brescia, together with the Gandinos and Camillo Rama, with whom he was sometimes confused. The only certain work that remains of his is the Inferno already in S. Afra (now awaiting renovation), on which is the inscription: "Pets. Iac. Barucchus 1630" (which could also be read: 1620) , a cumbersome and confused picture, with a vague Tintorettesque flavor (Morassi), which to the naive sensibility of Maccarinelli (p. 97) could have seemed terribly effective, but fully justifies the overall judgment given by Lanzi on B.: "loaded with dark beyond common usage". A deposed Christ with two angels and two saints (Carmine church) is also generally referred to B., already assigned to him by Faino, Paglia and others, but passed by Maccarinelli to Antonio Gandino; the attribution to B. seems the most reliable, since in Gandino a more lucid and hard sign is usually recognized, while the work in question is carried out with a fluid and rather pasty hand; it mixes suggestive memories of Moretto with a Palmesque Venetianism, adhering to a typically mannerist structure. Again in the Carmine church the frescoes on the vault, within quadratures by Sandrini, are given to B. with Rama and Bernardino Gandino; but opinions in literature, even ancient literature, are divided on the attribution; B.'s hand is mostly recognized in the figures of the Sibyls (Calabi, Morassi). The frescoes with the Joyful Mysteries in S. Domenico were destroyed, and the canvas with Jesus at Calvary in the church of the Misericordia (praised especially by Fenaroli), unanimously remembered as by B., was lost; thus the frescoes and the canvas in S. Cristoforo, attributed by Faino, but by Maccarinelli believed to be by PA Sorisene and C. Bacchioco. Faino still mentioned B.'s name for the frescoes in the vault of SS. Nazario and Celso and the fresco with a so-called St. John the Baptist in the oratory of S. Giovanni, but no ancient or recent guide has collected such attributions. After 1630 there is no news of the artist.
