The Coral Fishers

mythological

The elegant Coral Fishers (also referred to as Allegory of the Discovery of the New World) and the Allegory of the Creation (also in the Galleria Borghese) by Jacopo Zucchi formerly decorated Cardinal Ferdinando's studiolo in the Villa Medici in Rome. It was probably thanks to the Florentine Jacopo Zucchi, in Rome from the papacy of Gregory XIII (1572-85) and to the taste of his patron Cardinal Ferdinando de'Medici that paintings designed for small rooms began to be imported. These paintings, which had the same artificiality as the decorative work produced in Giorgio Vasari's workshop in Florence for the Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, were added to the collection being assembled by the cardinal for the Villa Medici in Rome.

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About the Artist

Jacopo Zucchi

1540 – 1596

Jacopo Zucchi was an Italian painter of the Florentine school. He was an assistant to Vasari whose style he initially copied. He was in Rome from the papacy of Gregory XIII (1572-85). He painted many paintings to his patron Cardinal Ferdinando de'Medici, including those for the Studiolo in the Villa Medici in Rome. In Rome, the light-dark painting of Caravaggio impressed him, while compositional solutions can in part be traced to Bartholomeus Spranger, who was resident in Rome.

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