Mario Minniti
Mario Minniti (8 December 1577 – 22 November 1640) was an Italian artist active in Sicily after 1606.
Born in Syracuse, Sicily, he arrived in Rome in 1593, where he became the friend, collaborator, and model of the key Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610).[1] His main fame today is his identification, or proposed identification, as a model in many of Caravaggio's early works, including Boy with a Basket of Fruit, The Fortune Teller, The Musicians, Boy Bitten by a Lizard (probable), Bacchus, The Lute Player, The Calling of Saint Matthew, and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew.
He ceases to appear as a model after about 1600, when he is believed to have married, but he may have been involved with Caravaggio and others in the 1606 street brawl which resulted in the death of Ranuccio Tomassoni at Caravaggio's hands – his biographer records that he fled to Sicily following a homicide, from where he petitioned for a pardon (it was eventually granted), and it is known that he sheltered Caravaggio during the latter's stay in Sicily in 1608–1609, procuring for him the important commission for the Burial of Saint Lucy. In Sicily he established a successful workshop producing religious commissions and eventually became a respected local businessman. Because of the nature of his output, where paintings were produced as a collaborative effort by assistants and pupils, it is frequently difficult to identify exactly which works, or parts of works, are by Minniti's own hand. It is clear that he brought to Sicily the lessons he had learnt from Caravaggio, in particular the use of dramatic chiaroscuro and the depiction of scenes seized at the moment of greatest dramatic intensity, but his work (or rather his workshop's output) has been criticised for "endlessly recycled motifs" and "bland religious canvasses".[2] Nevertheless, he is held in high regard in Sicily, and it is possible to speak of a 'School of Minniti' in the island's artistic history.
References
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- Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
- Artists in biographies by Giovanni Baglione
- Baroque
- Chiaroscuro
- Tenebrism
- Paintings attributed to Caravaggio
- Dirck van Baburen
- Jan van Bijlert
- Paulus Bor
- Andries Both
- Hendrick Bloemaert
- Jan Gerritsz van Bronckhorst
- Hendrick ter Brugghen
- Wouter Crabeth II
- Gerard van Honthorst
- Matthias Stom
- Giovanni Baglione
- Marco Antonio Bassetti
- Orazio Borgianni
- Battistello Caracciolo
- Cecco del Caravaggio
- Bernardo Cavallino
- Bartolomeo Cavarozzi
- Domenico Fetti
- Paolo Domenico Finoglia
- Giovanni Antonio Galli
- Artemisia Gentileschi
- Orazio Gentileschi
- Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri
- Ottavio Leoni
- Bartolomeo Manfredi
- Mario Minniti
- Pietro Paolino
- Mattia Preti
- Orazio Riminaldi
- Carlo Saraceni
- Bartolomeo Schedoni
- Giovanni Serodine
- Carlo Sellitto
- Leonello Spada
- Massimo Stanzione
- Giuseppe Vermiglio
- Related topics
- Rembrandt
- Gerrit Dou
- Peter Paul Rubens
- Diego Velázquez