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Italian family of patrons and collectors. They were one of the wealthiest and most celebrated patrician families of Milan. The earliest records of them date from 1228, when they made lavish donations to the monastery of Chiaravalle, near Milan. Giuseppe Archinto (i) (d 1476), Chancellor under Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza (reg 1466–76), added to the family’s wealth. His grandson Francesco Archinto (d 1551), a jurist, was the favoured commissary of Louis XII in the area of Chiavenna; a portrait of him, preserved by the family, is attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Francesco’s cousin Filippo Archinto (1500–58) was appointed Senator by Duke Francesco Maria Sforza and in 1530 represented Milan at the coronation of the Emperor Charles V in Bologna. Filippo held various Imperial posts, including that of Ambassador to Rome, where Pope Paul III ordained him Bishop. In 1566 the Pope appointed him Archbishop of Milan, in which capacity his portrait (...

Italian family of patrons and collectors. Their residence in the Piazza del Guastato, Genoa, is documented from 1547. With the collaboration of the Genoese comune they made the road (originally the Strada Nuovissima, now the Via Balbi) linking the Piazza del Guastato with the Porta di S Tomaso and were responsible for commissioning many buildings along it. Niccolò Balbi (d c. 1549), a silk merchant, made the family fortune and had four sons: Giovanni Francesco Balbi (d c. 1593), Pantaleo Balbi, Giovanni Girolamo Balbi and Bartolomeo Balbi. The third, Giovanni Girolamo, almost certainly lived in Antwerp, and his collection contained many works by Flemish artists and the works of such Genoese painters as Sinibaldo Scorza, Domenico Fiasella, Giovanni Battista Carlone (i) and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. The youngest son, Bartolomeo, also lived in Antwerp, where it is thought that he started his collection of paintings. His son, ...

Italian family of patrons. They were endowed with intelligence and artistic gifts, as well as wealth and influence, and they included some of the most eminent humanist scholars of the 15th century, including Francesco di Candiano Barbaro (c. 1395–1454), a Latin and Greek scholar, and Ermolao Barbaro (1453–97), the author of important commentaries on Aristotle, later edited by Daniele Barbaro. The family’s principal palace on the Grand Canal, Venice, has remained one of the least altered of the city’s Gothic palaces, apart from the enlargements (1694–8) of Antonio Gaspari (1670–1730). From 1534 onwards, Fra Zuanne Barbaro was one of the two friars who took special responsibility for the rebuilding of S Francesco della Vigna in Venice to the design of Jacopo Sansovino. His brother Francesco Barbaro was the first Venetian noble to purchase one of the family chapels in the new church. The Barbaro family owned huge estates in the Veneto above Treviso. It was here in the 1550s that ...

Italian family of patrons. They are documented from the early 1200s in Verona, where their rise in fortune was related to their support of the della Scala (or Scaligeri) family (reg 1259–1387). In 1336 Francesco Bevilacqua (1304–68) received a gift of land near Montagnana for his services; he built a castle there and the settlement that grew up around it is still known as Bevilacqua. In 1381 his son Guglielmo Bevilacqua (1334–97) sought refuge with Gian Galeazzo Visconti, later 1st Duke of Milan, who subsequently became ruler of Verona (reg 1387–1402). The Bevilacqua family thus regained possession of its lands but following Visconti’s death allied itself with Venice, which assumed control of Verona in 1516. At the splendid Palazzo Bevilacqua (1530), on the Corso Cavour, Verona, redeveloped by Michele Sanmicheli for Antonio Bevilacqua and his brother Gregorio, the architect took his inspiration from the nearby Roman gate, the Porta dei Borsari, to create one of his most successful works. The building has a Mannerist façade exhibiting a complex interplay of decorative features. The Verona family later also included Count ...

Italian family of patrons. Pietro Boncompagni (d 1404), a reader in civil law from 1378 to 1391, was buried in a tomb in S Martino, Bologna, where a Boncompagni family chapel, outstanding for its works of art, was completed in 1534. Its richly carved decoration is attributed to Amico Aspertini, and it features an Adoration of the Magi (1532) by Girolamo da Carpi on the wooden altar (attrib. Bartolomeo Ramenghi Bagnacavallo I). A great-grandson of Pietro Boncompagni, Cristoforo Boncompagni (1470–1546) was a draper and financier. He built a palazzo (1538–45) near the cathedral of S Pietro; its decorations were completed by his sons after his death. Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola may have contributed to this elegant and dignified structure. Restored in 1845, the palazzo, now called Palazzo Benelli, stands at Via del Monte 8. Interior restoration work began in 1980.

Cristoforo Boncompagni’s ten children included a son Ugo Boncompagni, who became ...

Italian family of patrons, merchants and statesmen. From the 14th century the family was a powerful force in the political and economic life of Florence. A focus for their patronage was the family chapel in the church of Santo Spirito, Florence, which contains the sarcophagus (1458) of Neri di Gino Capponi (1388–1457) by Bernardo Rossellino. In 1521 Ludovico Capponi (d 1534), having pursued a banking career in Rome, returned to Florence and in 1525 bought the Annunziata Chapel (attributed to Brunelleschi) in the church of S Felicità. For it he commissioned from Jacopo da Pontormo, assisted by his pupil Bronzino, decorations (1525–8) that included an altarpiece of the Lamentation (in situ), which has subsequently been regarded as both Pontormo’s masterpiece and a key work of Mannerism. Bronzino later executed a portrait (c. 1550; New York, Frick) of Ludovico’s son, also named Ludovico Capponi (...

[Corner]

Italian family of nobles and patrons. Among the richest, most powerful and oldest of Venetian families, the Cornaro boasted four doges among its members, the first of whom was Marco Cornaro. The best-known member of the family is Caterina Cornaro, the dispossessed Queen of Cyprus; her knighted brother Giorgio Cornaro (1447–1527), a hero of the Wars of the League of Cambrai, established three of his sons as heads of independent branches: the Cornaro della Regina, named for their inheritance of the Queen’s great Gothic palace (c. 1450–80; destr. 1723; rebuilt 1723–c. 1730) in the parish of San Cassiano; the Cornaro di Ca’ Grande, whose palace (begun 1545) at San Maurizio was designed by Jacopo Sansovino; and the Cornaro di San Polo, whose palace (c. 1550) was by Michele Sanmicheli (see Sanmicheli, Michele, §1, (ii), (a)).

These three distinct, but allied branches made the Cornaro uniquely powerful among Venetian families: their San Polo members included the three later doges as well as Cardinal ...

[Hercolani.]

Italian family of patrons. The Bolognese branch of the family was descended from Andrea Ercolani, who settled in Bologna early in the 15th century. In the second quarter of the 16th century Conte Vincenzo Ercolani became a senator in Bologna and was ennobled by Pope Clement VII. For the family chapel in S Maria del Baraccano he commissioned a Disputation of St Catherine (c. 1551–60; in situ) from Prospero Fontana (i), and according to Vasari he was the owner (perhaps the first) of Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel (Florence, Pitti) and the Noli me tangere by Correggio (c. 1520–28; Madrid, Prado). In 1560 the writer Pietro Lamo noted these paintings in the collection of Conte Agostino Ercolani. In the 17th century the family continued its patronage of painters, including Guercino. In 1699 Filippo Ercolani was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire by the Emperor Leopold I. In Bologna Filippo was a patron of the painters ...

English family of patrons and collectors. One of the earliest notable members of the family was the leading Renaissance poet, Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554–1628); from 1605 the family was established at Warwick Castle, Warwicks. Francis Greville, 1st Earl Brooke and 1st Earl of Warwick (1719–73), was a patron and collector on a considerable scale, acquiring Dutch pictures and commissioning a series of family portraits from Joshua Reynolds and views of Warwick Castle from Canaletto (c. 1748 and 1751; examples New Haven, CT, Yale Cent. Brit. A.; Birmingham, Mus. & A.G.). The Earl also engaged ‘Capability’ Brown to make improvements to Warwick Castle and its park during the 1750s. His eldest son, George Greville, 2nd Earl Brooke and 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816), whose portrait was among those by Reynolds (1754; priv. col., see Reynolds, exh. cat., ed. N. Penny; London, RA, ...

Rulers and patrons. The patronage of the dukes of Lorraine was especially important between the late 16th century and the early 17th, and in the mid-18th. Although Lorraine was created as an independent hereditary duchy under the protection of the Holy Roman Empire during the early Middle Ages (see Lotharingia), it was linked by ties of language and culture to France. Increasing French political pressure from the mid-16th century culminated in the invasion of the territory by French forces under King Louis XIII in 1633. Until then, however, by a combination of force of personality, diplomatic skill and intermarriage with the European aristocracy, the dukes had succeeded in maintaining a peaceful and relatively prosperous, if socially backward, state. From as early as the mid-15th century, the court, based in the capital, Nancy, was noted for the promotion of poetry, music, manuscript illumination and, above all, festivities (see...

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 (...

[MassimiMassimo alle Colonne]

Italian family of nobles, bankers and patrons. It is one of the oldest Roman families, and its members have held important offices in the secular and ecclesiastical administration of Rome and the Church. In 1826 Pope Leo XII conferred on them the rank of Principe. According to tradition, as recorded by Onofrio Panvinio c. 1550, the family owes its origins to the Roman general Fabius Maximus (3rd century bc). By the 12th century they owned a house in the Parione district of Rome, on the site of the present Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Pietro Massimo (d 1489) housed the printing firm of Konrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz in his palazzo in Rome (destr. 1527), and founded the chapel of St Peter Martyr in S Maria della Strada (destr. 16th century), Rome. His son Domenico Massimo (d 1531/2) amassed enormous riches and expanded the palazzo. After his death, Domenico’s sons ...

Italian family of statesmen, patrons and collectors. Six members of the family occupied the office of Doge of Venice. The first of these was Tommaso Mocenigo (b 1343; d 3 April 1423), whose rule was characterized by continued peace and the promotion of commercial prosperity through maritime trade. His marble tomb (c. 1425) by Pietro di Niccolò Lamberti and Giovanni di Martino da Fiesole (fl c. 1425–60) is in the church of SS Giovanni e Paolo and typifies an emerging Renaissance style in Venetian monumental sculpture and tomb architecture. Its unresolved amalgamation of Late Gothic and early Renaissance devices is augmented by a relief depicting Prudence and two figures representing Faith and Charity, almost certainly derived from Donatello. The tombs of two other Mocenigo doges are also in SS Giovanni e Paolo. The marble tomb of Tommaso’s nephew Pietro Mocenigo (b 1406; d...

Italian family of statesmen, patrons and collectors. Members of the family were prominent in the political and cultural life of Florence from the 15th century. In 1576 Giovanni Niccolini (1544–1611), Florentine ambassador to Rome from 1588 to 1610, acquired the palace (1548–50; now Palazzo Niccolini) at 15 Via de’ Servi in Florence, where he also founded the family chapel (c. 1580–85) in the church of Santa Croce. Andrea Palladio submitted a sketch but the chapel was built to the design of Giovanni Antonio Dosio, with sculpture (c. 1585; in situ) by Pietro Francavilla and paintings of the Assumption of the Virgin and Coronation of the Virgin (both 1588; in situ) by Alessandro Allori. Giovanni was also interested in antiquities, especially coins, of which he assembled a notable collection, with Dosio at times acting as his agent in Rome. Giovanni’s younger son, Filippo Niccolini (...

Italian family of patrons. One of the greatest Roman dynasties, the Orsini are documented from the 11th century and rose to prominence under the pontificate of Pope Celestine III (reg 1191–8). The founder proper of the Orsini dynasty was Matteo Rosso Orsini (d after 1254). In 1241 they defended Rome from the assault of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, and as a consequence began their traditional enmity with the Colonna family. By the 13th century they had had two popes: Celestine III and Nicholas III. The latter’s emblem, also that of the family, was a standing bear (It. orso). At the close of the 13th century the Orsini began to divide into numerous branches, the principal ones being those of Monterotondo, the Conti di Nola and Pitigliano and the Duce di Bracciano and Gravina. So extensive was the family that it is not possible to reconstruct a comprehensive genealogy. The French family of Jouvenel des Ursins claimed kinship with them, and they were connected by marriage to the Medici and Farnese families....

Italian family of patrons and collectors. The Pallavicini were an ancient family with branches throughout Liguria and Lombardy. The Jesuit priest Marcello Pallavicini (1560–1624) and his brother Marchese Nicolò Pallavicini (1563–1619) were important members of the Genoese branch of the family and from 1596 benefactors of Genoa’s new Jesuit church, SS Ambrogio e Andrea (Il Gesù). In 1604 Peter Paul Rubens was in Genoa, where he was befriended by Nicolò, who probably introduced him to his brother, and Rubens was commissioned to execute the Circumcision (1604–5; Genoa, Il Gesù). The three-quarter-length sitter in a portrait by Rubens (c. 1604; priv. col., on loan to Cambridge, Fitzwilliam) has been identified as Nicolò Pallavicini. Sometime after 1612 Nicolò commissioned Rubens to paint the Miracles of St Ignatius Loyola (c. 1618–19) for his chapel in Il Gesù (in situ).

A second Genoese branch of the Pallavicini was comprised of the heirs of ...