Sigismondo Caula Biography
Sigismondo Caula was born in Modena on 24 May 1637. He was one of the most sought-after decorators of ceilings and vaults in the city of Modena.
A pupil of the painter Jean Boulanger of Troyes, after completing his studies he went to Venice where he took inspiration from the great masters of the sixteenth century, in particular Veronese and Tintoretto.
Returning to Modena, he undertook the execution of numerous works commissioned by the Church or ducal, both as a painter and as a sculptor.
From 1671 he was part of a group of Boulanger's students tasked with decorating the vault and dome of the church of S. Vincenzo. The most important commission appears to be the large canvas depicting “S. Carlo Borromeo administering the Eucharist to the plague victims" for the internal wall of the main portal of the church of S. Carlo in Modena.
He was involved in a notable series of works for churches and confraternities: he frescoed the SS. Trinità in the vault of the chapel of the Sacrament in the cathedral, he decorated the destroyed chapel of the Crucifix also in the cathedral with lateral decorations depicting St. Peter and St. Paul, for the choir of the Confraternity of S. Rocco he painted a canvas, lost, depicting the SS. John the Baptist, Rocco, Sylvester and the Virgin in Glory and a Rest in Egypt, lost, for the church of the Visitation of the Salesian nuns, he executed a series of works having as their theme the miraculous story of the construction of the church for the brothers of S. Maria della Snow.
In all these works the artist gives the figures movements of supple elegance on a solid structure without surprises or great tensions. Caula died in Modena in July 1724.
