Jacopo Ligozzi Biography
Jacopo Ligozzi (Verona, 1547 – Florence, March 1627) was an Italian painter. He was born in Verona in 1547, into a family of artisans and painters, his father was the painter and embroiderer Giovanni Ermanno Ligozzi, in whose workshop he trained. He followed his father when in 1557 he was called to Trento by Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo. In Trentino he left the altarpiece with Saint Anne with the Virgin and Saints Gerolamo and Gregory the Great (1566) in Sant'Antonio Abate in Bivedo and, in collaboration with his father, the one with the Madonna and Child and Saints Silvestro and Lorenzo (1567) in New Year's Eve in Vigo Lomaso. The Epiphany in the Holy Trinity, the Trinity and saints in Sant'Eufemia and the Finding of the Cross in San Luca are also ascribed to Jacopo's training period in Verona. In 1572 he married Angela Baldassini. In 1577 he was called to Florence by the Grand Duke Francesco I, where he immediately had the opportunity to meet and be appreciated by Ulisse Aldrovandi, who would become one of his most fervent admirers. [For ten years, until the death of the Grand Duke, he tried his hand at creating of a large corpus of naturalistic illustrations, both botanical and zoological, preserved in the Drawings and Prints Cabinet of the Uffizi and, to a lesser extent, in the University Library of Bologna, to the point of making this artistic genre his specialty. Between 1583-84 and 1586, under the commission of Francesco I, he was involved in the naturalistic-themed decoration of the Uffizi Tribune, making use of the help of Donato Mascagni, Ludovico Cardi, Agostino Ciampelli and Gregorio Pagani, lost in the twenty-first century. Probably by 1587 three landscapes, a still life and a San Gerolamo (perhaps the one in Casa Vasari) by Jacopo's hand were also exhibited in the Tribuna, as attested by the inventory of 1589. He also participated in the decoration of the Tethys cave in the villa of Pratolino, which has also been lost. From the mid-eighties his activity as an easel painter also increased. On 15 December 1587, on the occasion of the funeral of Grand Duke Francesco I held in San Lorenzo, he painted the Fortification of Livorno, part of the cycle of twelve chiaroscuro canvases that celebrated his deeds (subsequently lost). With the accession of Ferdinand I, his role as court artist was significantly reduced, having also to abandon the residence in the casino of San Marco which had been granted to him by Francesco I, moving to via Larga, despite remaining paid for by the grand duke and moving his own workshop at the Uffizi. He participated in the decoration on the occasion of the wedding between Ferdinand and Christina of Lorraine, of which a preparatory drawing remains for the canvas with the Allegory of Tuscany which was placed on the facade of Palazzo Vecchio (British Museum). Under Ferdinand I, his artistic activity turned towards large figure painting: for the grand ducal court he portrayed Maria de' Medici (1589, Uffizi) and created the two enormous slate paintings with the Coronation of Cosimo I as Grand Duke of Tuscany ( 1591) and Boniface VIII receives the Florentine ambassadors (1592) for the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio, with the assistance of his cousin Francesco Ligozzi. In the same years he began his activity as an altarpiece painter, painting the Allegory of the Cord of Saint Francis (1589) for the convent of Bosco ai Frati and the Deposition (1591) for the Capuchin church in San Gimignano, a genre which will dedicate more and more assiduously. From 1593, he was no longer in the service of the Medici, having to close the Uffizi workshop and give up his monthly salary. Exhibitions: In 1961, the Exhibition of drawings by Jacopo Ligozzi (1547-1626), curated by Mina Bacci and Anna Forlani, was held at the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the Uffizi in Florence. In 1992 the Castle of the Guidi counts in Poppi hosted the Jacopo Ligozzi exhibition in Casentino, curated by Lucilla Conigliello. In 2014 the Palatine Gallery in Florence dedicated an exhibition to him, Jacopo Ligozzi. "Pittore universalissimo", curated by Alessandro Cecchi, Lucilla Conigliello and Marzia Faietti, which intended to illustrate the painter's span of activity and above all the different areas in which he found himself operating. At the same time, the exhibition Jacopo Ligozzi, "altro apelle" was held in the Drawings and Prints Department of the Uffizi, curated by Maria Elena De Luca and Marzia Faietti, which investigated his graphic production.
