Annibale Carracci Biography
Son of Antonio and younger brother of the painter Agostino, he trained in the workshop of his cousin Ludovico, together with whom he founded the Accademia dei Desiderosi (later called Accademia degli Incamminati) in 1582, in which he learned to combine attention to typical drawing of the Florentine school with the taste for color typical of the Venetian one. In 1584 he worked with his brother and cousin on the cycle of frescoes dedicated to the life of Jason in the Palazzo Ghisilardi San Gregorio, also in Bologna. It is the phase in which Correggio's influence is felt most, permeating the entire Bolognese school of painting; the two laments on the Dead Christ and the Assumption for the church of San Rocco in Reggio Emilia (today in Dresden), dated 1587, bear witness to this. Between 1587 and 1588 he visited Parma and Venice and, returning to Bologna, completed together with two other Carracci two important fresco cycles: the one depicting the Foundation of Rome for the Palazzo Magnani (1589-1592) and the one with the Stories of Hercules for the Palazzo Sampieri, also in Bologna (1593-1594). The fame of these monumental frescoes earned Annibale the invitation of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese to decorate the main floor of Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Having arrived in Rome with Agostino in 1595, he created the famous frescoes depicting The Loves of the Gods, in which Domenichino and Lanfranco also collaborated. An absolute masterpiece of fresco painting of the time, the Palazzo Farnese cycle was for a long time considered the classicist counterpart to the rise of the exasperatedly realistic style of the Caravaggists. As if to seal this continuity with the great masters of the Renaissance, Annibale was buried in the Pantheon alongside Raphael.
