Cupola vault

religious

After the magnificent church cupola frescoes of the seventeenth century by Lanfranco, Pozzo, Baciccio, Pietro da Cortona, and others, the eighteenth century achieved its own spectacular effects with cupola frescoes enlivened by the infusion of natural light. Cupola painting was still the painter's greatest challenge. Conquering such tall spaces was made easier by a more modern scaffolding design widely employed following the building of the new Saint Peter's.

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About the Artist

Mattia Bortoloni

1696 – 1750

Italian painter, trained in Venice under the guidance of Antonio Balestra. His known first works are the frescoes of the Villa Cornaro in Piombino Dese. In Venice he was active as a fresco painter in the palaces Contarini-Sceriman (1727) and Farsetti and executes the ceiling with the Glory of San Gaetano (before 1732) in the church of San Nicola da Tolentino. He stayed in Ferrara where he executed the Miracle of St Thomas Aquinas in the cathedral and the Virgin Mary and Saints Cosma and Damian in the Archbishop's Palace. In 1749 he worked in Milan with Tiepolo in the palaces Clerici and Casati-Dugnani. He also produced the frescoes in the Duomo of Monza (1742) and the Triumph of Charity at the Episcopal Palace of Lodi and the Chariot of the Sun in Palazzo Rasini Cavenago Brianza. Following he decorates the piano nobile of Palazzo Barolo in Turin (1743), the dome of the shrine of Vicoforte in Mondovi (1746) and then the dome and the refectory (1748). In 1747 he is active in Birago Villa Raimondi (Stories of Caesar and Cleopatra). His last work is dated 1750 and located in the church of San Bartolomeo in Bergamo (Glory of the Blessed Sacrament).

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