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(bapt Lisbon, Sept 30, 1643; d Lisbon, Nov 25, 1712).

Portuguese architect and master mason. He worked in the context of a national tradition marked by Mannerism and the Plain style (see Portugal, Republic of, §II, 2), but he also contributed to the progressive acceptance of new Baroque concepts of space in Portugal, as shown in the use of polygonal plans. He gave a festive and sumptuous treatment to the interiors of his buildings, using inlay of coloured jasper or marble, which is sometimes combined with carved and gilded woodwork (talha) and blue and white azulejos (glazed tiles). Antunes probably learnt these intarsia techniques from the examples of the decorations (c. 1665–92; destr. 1755) of the nave and chancel of the church of the convent of S Antão-o-Novo, Lisbon, and those (1668–c. 1707) of the sacristy of the convent church of S Vicente de Fora, Lisbon. In 1670 Antunes was admitted to the Irmandade de S José dos Carpinteiros e Pedreiros in Lisbon, which gave him professional status as master mason. In ...

Maltese family of painters. Stefano Erardi (b 1630; d 1716) was of French extraction and would seem to have been trained in the workshop of a Mannerist artist, though much of his apprenticeship probably consisted of copying paintings in Maltese collections and studying prints after works by famous artists. This may account for his eclecticism, but it would be wrong to dismiss him as a plagiarist. His best works reveal him to have been an excellent draughtsman with a good sense of colour, who never completely renounced his Mannerist formation. His contacts with Mattia Preti broadened his artistic horizons and introduced him to Neapolitan Baroque art. His work had great popular appeal and helped to stimulate the emergence of a Maltese school of Baroque painting in the 18th century. His most prestigious commission, and one of his best works, is the Adoration of the Magi (Valletta, St John). Equally remarkable are the huge altarpiece of the ...

[Xuarez]

Mexican family of painters. Luis Juarez (b c. 1585; d Mexico City, c. 1638) painted in the Mannerist style of the Spanish painters settled in Mexico, such as Baltasar de Echave Orio and Alonso Vázquez, although his figures are softer than those of his teachers. He began working in the first decade of the 17th century. His signed St Teresa (Guadalajara, Mus. Guadalajara) dates from that time and his St Anthony of Padua and the Ascension (both Querétaro, Mus. Reg.) from 1610. In 1611 he was commissioned to make the triumphal arch for the reception of the Viceroy of New Spain, Fray García Guerra. During the 1620s he painted the retables in the church of Jesús María, Mexico City, and in S Agustín, Puebla. The finest of his numerous religious works are the Annunciation, the Agony in the Garden, the Visitation, the Archangel Michael, and St Raphael (all Mexico City, Pin. Virreinal); the ...

Italian family of patrons and collectors. Members of the family held important political positions in Florence, especially during the 15th century. One of their most important acts of patronage, recorded by Vasari, was the commissioning by Roberto Martelli (1408–64) of several sculptures from Donatello, including the famous statue of St John the Baptist as a Youth (c. 1455; Florence, Bargello). Although the accuracy of Vasari’s information has been questioned, some recently discovered unpublished documents have enabled a partial confirmation of the attribution (see Civai, 1988–9, pp. 40–59; 1989). During the 16th century the family gave important commissions to Lorenzo di Credi, Giorgio Vasari, Andrea Sansovino and Giovanni Francesco Rustici in connection with the decoration of family chapels in the basilica of S Lorenzo and the churches of S Frediano in Florence and S Agostino in Rome. In the 17th century the Martelli constructed their sumptuous chapel (...

[Giannantonio]

(b Venice, April 29, 1675; d Venice, Nov 5, 1741).

Italian painter. With Sebastiano Ricci and Jacopo Amigoni he was the most important Venetian history painter of the early 18th century. By uniting the High Renaissance style of Paolo Veronese with the Baroque of Pietro da Cortona and Luca Giordano, he created graceful decorations that were particularly successful with the aristocracy of central and northern Europe. He travelled widely, working in Austria, England, the Netherlands, Germany and France.

His father, a glover, came from Padua. At an early age Pellegrini was apprenticed to the Milanese Paolo Pagani (1661–1716), with whom he travelled to Moravia and Vienna in 1690. In 1696 Pellegrini was back in Venice, where he painted his first surviving work, a fresco cycle in the Palazzetto Corner on Murano, with scenes from the life of Alexander the Great and allegorical themes on the ceiling. Here his figure style is clearly derived from Pagani, but the effects of light and the free handling suggest the art of Giordano or even Cortona, whose work Pellegrini could not then have known. By contrast, brushwork in a series of paintings of the ...