Il cavaliere d' Arpino

Giuseppe Cesari's mother, aware of her son's precocious ability in drawing, took him to Rome when he was only about thirteen years old. Here he entered the workshop of Niccolò Circignani (1517/24-before 9 October 1596), where he was soon promoted to the painting team. Circignani was, at this time, directing the decoration of the third Vatican Logge, that of Gregory XIII, and it is here that Giuseppe's earliest known work is to be found, a small Abundance. Also at the Vatican, he worked in the Sala Vecchia degli Svizzeri and in the Sala dei Palafrenieri during 1583, the year in which he was also granted a salary by Pope Gregory XIII. However, a more significant patron was Cardinal Alessandro Farnese who, shortly before his death in 1589, commissioned Giuseppe to execute frescoes -now dispersed- in S. Lorenzo in Damaso. There¬after he visited Naples to work for the Certosa di S. Martino, returning to Rome in 1591. The following year, Clement VIII was elected to the papacy and Giuseppe became his principal painter. From 1598 he worked on various projects at the pope's Episcopal church, S. Giovanni in Laterano, in particular a fresco of the Ascension (1599-1601); on the basis of these works he was made Cavaliere di Cristo. In 1603 he designed the mosaics of the dome of St. Peter's. Cavaliere d'Arpino continued to receive papal patronage when Paul V succeeded Clement in 1605, notwithstanding his arrest in 1607 by the pope's nephew, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (Turner, N.: From Michelangelo to Annibale Carracci. A century of Italian drawings from the Prado, Art Services International-Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p. 182).