Scenes from the Life of Alexander the Great

1545 · Sala Paolina, Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome

historical

Between 1542 and 1548 Pope Paul III transformed a series of rooms on the two upper levels of the Castel Sant'Angelo into a comfortable and at the same time impressive apartment. Time and again this castle had provided protection to popes against the incursions of secular powers, and it continued to have a military function. His predecessors had commissioned various decorations, although these have been lost.

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Scenes from the Life of Alexander the Great

About the Artist

Marco Pino

1525 – 1587

Italian painter, called Marco da Siena. He was an apprentice of Domenico Beccafumi in Siena (1537-42), and by 1543 was in Rome. His Mannerist formula was already evident in the Visitation (1545; Rome, Santo Spirito in Sassia). Through his collaborations with Perino del Vaga on frescoes in the Castel Sant'Angelo (1546) and Daniele da Volterra on frescoes in Trinità de' Monti (1548-53), he combined the grace of Perino with the twisting poses of Michelangelo. He may have travelled to Spain and by 1557 had settled in Naples, where he executed frescoes (destroyed) at Montecassino and the Baptism of Christ (1564; Naples, San Domenico Maggiore). In Rome in 1568 he painted a Resurrection in the oratory of the Gonfalone and a Pietà for Santa Maria in Aracoeli. After returning to Naples, he executed such works there as the Adoration of the Magi and the Assumption of the Virgin (1571; both SS Severino e Sossio) and the Archangel Michael (1573; Sant'Angelo a Nilo), which reflected Counter-Reformation tendencies. Among his paintings exported from Naples is the Conversion of Saul (1574; Palermo, Galleria Regionale della Sicilia). The devotional aspect is accentuated in his Neapolitan works of 1577-78: a Crucifixion (Naples, SS Severino e Sossio) and a Transfiguration (Naples, Gesù Vecchio).

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