Giulio Campi

Giulio Campi (1502 - Mar 5, 1572) was an Italian painter and architect. His brothers Vincenzo Campi and Antonio Campi were also renowned painters.

Campi is called the "Ludovico Carracci of Cremona" for his influence, since Campi was as influential during the Renaissance in Cremona as the latter was on the Baroque school of Bologna. When he was just twenty-seven Giulio executed for the church of Sant'Abondio his masterpiece, a Virgin and Child with Sts Celsus and Nazarus, a decoration masterly in the freedom of its drawing and in the splendour of its color. His numerous paintings are grandly and reverently conceived, freely drawn, vigorously coloured, lofty in style, and broadly handled. He was animated in all his work by a deep piety. Many of his fresco works are housed in churches of Cremona, Mantua, Milan and in the church of Saint Margaret's, in his native town. Among his chief works are the Descent from the Cross in San Sigismondo at Cremona, and the frescoes in the dome of San Girolamo at Mantua. He was involved in the reconstruction and decoration of the church of Santa Rita in Cremona. An altar-piece in San Sigismondo and his Labours of Hercules were engraved by the celebrated Ghiso, il Mantovano.

Leading member of an artistic dynasty in Cremona, Giulio Campi trained his much younger brother, with whom he sometimes collaborated; his own sons; and a group of pupils who dominated Cremonese painting in the last half of the 1500s. According to Giorgio Vasari, Campi learned painting from his father, though his early creations were also indebted to Pordenone's Mannerist style.

CAMPI, Giulio. The eldest of a family prominent painters, Campi was born at Cremona. His father Galeazzo (1475–1536) taught him the first lessons in art. Firstborn son of Galeazzo and brother of Antonio and Vincenzo (an inscription already in SS Nazaro and Gelso in Cremona, a church suppressed in 1804 where the tomb of the family of the Camps, documented this relationship of seniority, confirmed by every historical element: "Memoriae Aeternae Galeatii Camps Crem. Pictoris ... Julii Fields First Phil ... Antonii Fields Secundi Phil ... Vincentii Fields III Fil ...": F. Arisi, 1702). The date of birth is set fairly around 1500, considering that Lamo - perhaps a little anticipating - attributes good fame to the artist (alongside Camillo Boccaccino, born in 1501, and Sojaro) already at the time of Bernardino Campi's birth ( 1522); That his first dated work was 1527; And that the annotator of Lomazzo reports his birth at the year 1500.

In 1522, in Mantua, he studied painting, architecture, and modelling under Giulio Romano. He visited Rome, became an ardent student of the antique, and like Bernardino — distantly related to him — he combined a Lombard and Roman traditions. He collaborated on some works with Camillo Boccaccino, the son of Boccaccio Boccaccino, with whom Campi may also have received training.

On the formation of C. the sources provide contradictory news, which seems to agree only on the insignificant apprenticeship with his father. Vasari refers to relations with the Sojaro and - with dubious chronology - experiences on the Salviati Farnesian cartons; More insisted on references to studies at Giulio Romano in Mantova (Baldinucci, Lanzi, Lancetti) and a trip to Rome (D. Arisi, Lanzi) during which C. studied Raffaello and the ancient (Arisi recalls Picenardi's house drawings drawn by C. from the reliefs of the Trajan column). Useful of Lanzi's attachment between the formation of C. and the examples of Pordenone and Titian.

The oldest work of C. dated and signed is the blade with La Virgenine in the throne and the ss. Nazaro and Celso, painted for SS. Nazaro and Celso, now in S. Abbondio in Cremona ("Iulius Campus - Cremonêsis Faciebat - MDXXVII"). Three years later, C. is active in Soncino, where he performs a blade and a cycle of frescoes in the Carmelite church of S. Maria delle Grazie.

The church had been consecrated in 1528 in the presence of Francis II Sforza who had funded the decoration like the Marquis Stampa di Soncino. The blade (signed and dated by C. in 1530) represents the Virgin with the Child in glory, s. Caterina, s. Francesco and a Marquis Print and is now preserved in the Brera Art Gallery. C.'s frescoes occupy the triumphal arch, which reads the sign (Assumption of the Virgin, apostles and a bidding), the apse (round with the Evangelists and Church Fathers), the vault of the aisle, imagined as a pergola With rounds painted (with the date 1530 and the dedication of Sforza: the dedication of the Print is instead in the presbytery and dates back to 1528). In frescoes - which were probably conducted between 1528 and 30s - C. had to be helped by collaborators.

Another caveat was the decoration of the choir of the church of S. Agata in Cremona, with four frescoes depicting Storie di s. Agate signed and dated 1537 (preparatory drawings for Martyrdom at the Uffizi and the Louvre). From 26 April 1536 (contract for the altarpiece: Sacchi), C. had come into contact with the abbey church of the gerolamines of St. Sigismondo, which was a fruitful workshop of Cremona's mannerism; Here, the artist was active in two phases: between 1538 and 1542 (the palace of the great ancestor and frescoes in the transept) and in 1557 (frescoes in the first camp). The piece, signed and dated 1540 (a payment document of 1538), was made in memory of the church and wedding of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti (celebrated in the chapel pre-existing on 25th October 1441) and represents the Virgin In glory, ss. Daria, Sigismondo, Girolamo, Grisario and, kneeling, the two dukes (preparatory drawing at Albertina in Vienna). The frescoes of the transept represent Church Doctors, Biblical Stories, Angels with the Symbols of the Passion, Prophets (contract of April 14, 1539: Galeati). In the year 1541, C. designs with the Boccaccino the sumptuous decorative apparatus on the occasion of the passage to Cremona di Carlo V on 18 August, as recorded by brother Antonio in Cremona fedelissima (pp. 108 ss.), Where also the ncisione Derived from the portrait of Charles V that the painter had to perform in that circumstance, or two years later, on the return of the emperor. Carlo V was housed in the Trecchi Palace, where C. had executed frescoes with the Fatics of Hercules (lost): this theme is found in four frescoes painted by C. in the Soragna fortress for the Meli Lupi princes, probably at the same time.

Around 1539, Campi and his rival were both painting decorations in Cremona's church of San Sigismondo. In this competitive context, Campi created some of his most energetic works. His frescoes and altarpiece typify an eclectic style combining Giulio Romano's monumental classicism with the elegant, sensuality of Parmigianino, influences also displayed in his rival's nervously rhythmic frescoes. Together the two competitors designed and constructed decorations for Emperor Charles V's 1541 triumphal entry into Cremona. When Campi returned to San Sigismondo in the late 1550s, his style showed a greater monumentality and more daring illusionism, suggesting a recent visit to Rome. In his last years he painted regularly for Cremona Cathedral.

In 1547 C., in charge of the former Girolamo Vida, rebuilt and decorated the church of SS. Pelagia and Margherita: he could express himself at once as an architect, painter and sculptor (the statues were plastered), reaching a result of exquisite harmony. The interior space - structured in a single ship - sits on its sides for the presence of the arches of the altars (corresponding to the three vaulted vaults) and the apse covered by a cupola. The finest ornamentation produces an inlay effect. The frescoes represent Stories of Christ in the spaces of the altars, the Crucifixion in the bow over the Presbytery, the Adoration of the Magi in the Abyssinian, The Trinity in the Cupola, Old Testament Stories in the vault. The most recent criticism in the frescoes was the presence, beside C., of his young brother Antonio (Bora).

Beginning with the sign of a Romaniian experience, not without some reflection of Giorgione (S. Abbondio's palace), C.'s painting proceeds by assimilating and filtering away the most fainter solicitations of contemporary culture - with eclectic disposition. The lesson of the Madonna of S. Sisto of Raffaello, and of Dosso, is felt in the soncino blade. From Pordenone the C. mutua a "foga ... a folding and twisting of his plastic vision that allow him a more elastic and welcoming eclecticism" (Puerari): the results are felt in the frescoes of Soncino (1530) and in those of S Agate (1537), where however he prefers a hectic approach to Giulio Romano. Finally, it will be the fascinating example of Camillo Boccaccino - active in S. Sigismondo in 1537 - to allow C. to find a new finesse and laxity of the rhythms in the frescoes of S. Margherita (1547) and then in S. Sigismondo, To stimulate the aerial invention of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (1557-59). To the works of the fourth decade one can add some portraits that exemplify a particularly large - and equally problematic - area of Campi's activity. The earliest of the series could be the Worcester (Mass.) Art Museum mulberry player very close to the 1527 blade; A later moment seems to be the majestic Portrait of a Lady already in the Fassati collection, such as Bartolomeo Arese (Radlinski collection), Portrait Portrait virile n. 437 of the Estense Gallery in Modena and the alleged Portrait of Galeazzo Uffizi Fields. Also in the first half of the fourth decade should belong the Portrait of man with the glove attr. To L. Lotto in the Kress collection at Birmingham (Alabama) Museum of Art, not unlike Crema's cappuccini shovel, now in Brera, with the Blessed Virgin, saints and two bidders. Later Allegory of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, which has a mutilated date ("MDXXI ...").

After S. Margherita (1547) we have no news of C. in Cremona for about ten years. Recently, his presence at Meda, around 1555, was discovered in the church of S. Vittore, where he performed - in collaboration with Antonio - the frescoes on the wall dividing the two classrooms of the church (Bora). The frescos represent a Deposition divided into two groups of figures on the sides of the altar (Le Marie at the sepulcher and Christ deposited) and Angels (preparatory drawings are in the Embryos). In 1557 the artist reappears in Cremona, in S. Sigismondo, where he frescoes in the first spell the Descent of the Holy Spirit, one of his highest inventions: "There is a glimpse of the wheel, counterpointed, Correggio's protobarocco returns, not without a good dose Of archaism, to an effect of problematic naturalism "(Longhi), anticipating Vincenzo's prospective virtuosity in St. Paul's time. In the same years the fresco of the Quinto Curzio (Cremona, Civic Museum) was originally referred to the facade of a house in the district of Curzia. Between 1559 and 1562 can be dated the decorative frescoes of the villa Mozzoni-Cicogna in Bisuschio (Varese), referring to C. and collaborators. Also worth mentioning are frescoes performed in some of Trivulzio's castles, then Trecchi, in Maleo (Cremona), alongside Bernardino Campi.

The 21st ag. 1560 BC and the brothers Antonio and Vincenzo share the ownership of houses and land (Sacchi, pp. 252-55). Between 1564 and 1565, C. was active in Milan, first in St. Paul, where he collaborated with Antonio in the Stories of St. Paul (according to the Tower would have performed the whole fresco of Baptism); A year later, in S. Maria della Passione frescoes the vault of Tavema chapel and performs the shovel with the Crucifixion and saints (signed and dated 1565: the date is now mutilated). Later the canvas with Rest in Egypt still in St. Paul. From 1566 it is the shovel with S. Lorenzo in front of Valerian executed by the bishop of Alba, Girolamo Vida (Alba, cathedral).

C.'s extreme years were as intense as ever; He was particularly active in the cathedral of Cremona: in 1566 he was the terracotta anchovy of the altar wing and the shovel with S. Michele; Of the 1568 the covering of the organ with Iltrionfo of Mardocheo; Of 1568-69 three canvases in the chapel of the B. Virgo del Popolo (Baptism of Christ, Birth and Preaching of the Baptist) and three other paintings in the Sacrament Chapel (Last Supper, Harvest of Manna, Christ and Magdalen); On both occasions he worked alongside Bernardino Campi who - by contract - performed a number of paintings. Not very differently, around 1567, he had worked with his brother Antonio in St. Peter at Po (fresco with Circumcision). The extreme extreme stage of C. also seems to belong to a superb Allegory (recently acquired at the Civic Museum of Cremona), an unusual profane tale, with subtle Nordic suggestions (not yet clarifying the relationship with the analogous engraving by Ch. Schwartz). On the 28th of October. In 1571, C. concludes a contract for an anchor and frescoes in S. Maria di Campagna in Piacenza, work that can only begin (his brother Antonio will replace him). The artist, after making the will on February 28, 1572 (Sacchi, p. 235) dies in the same year: "in March, Giulio Campo went to my brother, painter ... of the main art ..." writes his brother in Cremona very faithful (p. ), And adds that he was buried in S. Nazaro.

C. had married Dorotea de Corrado and had three sons, Galeazzo, Curzio and Annibale, who later erected in S. Nazaro the funeral memory that was mentioned at the beginning. His house was placed in the Bardellona district, in the parish of St. Vittore. Among the students of C. - in addition to the brothers - stands out the Brescia Lattanzio Gambara.
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