A PROVINCIAL TUSCAN PAINTER OF THE 1ST THIRD OF THE 16TH CENTURY IN SEARCH OF THE GRAND MANNER: THE CURIOUS CASE OF AGOSTINO MARTI

Abstract

This paper concerns the paintings of Agostino Marti, who was active in Lucca in the 1510–1530s. His early work was based on local tradition at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, which was strongly influenced by Florentine models, though in the 1520s he began to adopt the visual language of the High Renaissance. The main source of his paintings in this period was the art of Fra Bartolomeo, who was well known in Lucca. But citations from Raphael’s and Michelangelo’s Roman works in his “Marriage of Virgin” (1523) and the evidence of Lucchese archives both suggest that he visited Rome in 1517. The image of St. Andrew from the Parish Church in Capannori provides further argument in favour of this suggestion. However, some spectacular details in Marti’s later paintings are similar to the prominent works of Rosso Fiorentino and Parmigianino, executed in Florence (1523) and Bologna (1527) respectively. So we may suppose that he also travelled much in the 1520s. Generally, his borrowings from High Renaissance and from Mannerist art were ingenuous and not systematic. They were anticipated by the eclectic character of late Quattrocento Lucchese painting, which was evidently more familiar to him. The use of older models, such as altarpieces painted by his teacher Michele Angelo di Pietro Membrini or by Filippino Lippi, who was an iconic figure for the Lucchese school, seems more natural for Agostino Marti.