Bartolomeo Schedoni

1578 – 1615

Italian painter whose untimely death (perhaps suicide owing to gambling debts) brought an abrupt end to the career of one of the most attractive painters of the seventeenth century and an eccentric exponent of the Emilian school. He was connected to the Farnese courts in Parma and Modena where he both assimilated and reworked a variety of different influences. Among them we can see both a direct line to Correggio, the finely detailed way of working used by the Carracci cousins, and all of the latest trends from Rome. Ranuccio Farnese sent Schedoni to Rome at the close of the sixteenth century, but he soon returned to Emilia and settled in Parma. It was there that he painted a small but fascinating group of masterpieces in a severe and noble style. At the same time his works were warmed by a light that softened fabrics and added delicacy to expressions. Although the dates and places were different, Schedoni's personal story ran along similar lines to Caravaggio 's. His violence and trouble-making got him into endless scrapes with the law, while his passion for tennis was so great that he almost lost the use of his right hand.

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