Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/237

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206 2UCCHEE0. in Rome, and suffered, according to Yasari, extreme privations at the com- mencement of his career, until, in 1548, the painter Danielle da Parma, en- gaged Taddeo to assist him in some frescoes at Alvito near Sora, after the completion of which he found constant employment at. Borne and elsewhere ; and though patronised hy two Popes, Julius III. and Paul IV., his chief patron was the Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, for whom he executed exten- sive works at Gaprarola, illustrating the glories of the Farnese family (they have heen engraved in 45 plates hy Prenner, Rome, 1748-50). The produc- tions of this popular painter with his contemporaries, are simple portrait com- positions, in the costume of his time ; they are frequently incorrect in design, and display generally great simplicity in their dispositions, and very little variety of character. He excelled espe- eially in pictures in which portraits are introduced ; he seldom ventured to paint the naked figure. According to Lanzi his earhest pictures are the hest. He painted also some extensive works in fresco at Rome, of which the best are those of the church of the Gonso- lazione. Taddeo lived thirty seven years and a day, and was buried by the side of Raphael, in the Pantheon. ZUCCHERO, or Zuccabo, Fede- moo, b, at Sant' Angelo in Yado, in 1543 ; d, at Ancona in 1609. Roman SchooL The brother, scholar, and as- sistant of Taddeo Zucchero, whose un- finished works at his death Federigo completed; bat he was an inferior painter to his brother, crowded in his composition, and mannered in his exe- cution. He was invited to Florence by the Grand Duke Francesco I., and continued for that prince the frescoes of the cupola of the cathedral, which had been commenced by TasarL He here painted more than three himdred figures forty feet high, with a Lucifer | so large, that the others (as Federigo writes) appeared mere babes in com- parison; he boasted that these were the largest figures in existence, bat their vastness, says Bottari, was their only merit. They, however, secured their painter an unrivalled reputation in his own day, and he was invited back to Rome by Gregory XIII., to paint the ceiling of the Cappella Pao- lina of the Vatican ; which work was interrupted on account of offence he took at the treatment he received from the Pope's servants. He paid a visit to England in 1574, and painted two portraits of <2ueen Elizabeth, and several distinguished persons of her court, including her gigantic porter: he remained only a short time in this country, and then returned to Rome, and after the completion of thePaolina, proceeded to Spain, where he arrived in 1586, and worked for the King Philip II., at a salary of 2000 scudi per annum : he was occupied three years in the Escurial; but the works he executed were shortly afterwards destroyed to make room for others by Pellegrino Tibaldi. He wrote a work on the principles of painting, sculp- ture, and architecture, entitled L'Idea de* PUtori, ScuUori, e Architetti, printed at Turin, 1607 ; and by Bottari, in the Lettere Pittoriche, vol. vi. pp. 35~199. It is a singular work, but Lanzi terms Zucchero's writings bombastio and pedantic, presenting a mere tissue of sterile and undigested speculations, and says that one page of Yasari is worth more than all Zucchero ever wrote. Yet Mariette advised Bottari to reprint his Idea on account of the many inter- esting facts it contained. The abstmse and inflated style of Federigo, however, contrasts most strikingly with the graphic simple manner of the Floren- tine biographer. Federigo was the chief instrument in the foundation of the Academy of St. Luke at Rome, and