MARATTA, CARLO

born May 15, 1625, Camerino, Papal States died Dec. 15, 1713, Rome Maratta also spelled Maratti one of the leading painters of the Roman school in the later 17th century, and one of the last great masters of Baroque classicism, who (with Francesco Solimena) established the style known as the European Grand Manner. Maratta went early to Rome, where he studied. His reputation was established with his first public work, the Nativity (1650; San Giuseppe dei Falegnami, Rome). A few years later he was noticed by Pope Alexander VII, and thereafter he secured an almost uninterrupted series of important commissions for altarpieces in Italian churches. Among these are The Mystery of the Trinity Revealed to St. Augustine (c. 1655; Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori, Rome), The Appearance of the Virgin to St. Philip Neri (c. 1675; Pitti Palace, Florence), and The Virgin with SS. Charles and Ignatius (c. 1685; Santa Maria in Vallicella, Rome). His many popular depictions of the Virgin earned him the nickname Carluccio delle Madonne (Little Carlo of the Madonnas). He also executed a number of decorative ceiling frescoes in Roman palaces and was one of the most distinguished portrait painters in Italy during this period. His portraits include one of Pope Clement IX. Maratta advocated classicism, at least in theory, in opposition to the Baroque painters Pietro da Cortona, Baciccia, and Padre Pozzo. But Maratta was only partly a classicist in practice. His work displays without restraint the Baroque quality of magnificence, and he was wholeheartedly engaged in the task of representing with the utmost splendour the dogmas of the Counter-Reformation.