“Pontormo Rosso Fiorentino (Library of Great Masters)”, by Elisabetta Marchetti Letta

 

80 pages, Riverside Book Company, ISBN-13: 978-1878351487

I don’t always know why I buy a book: a spur-of-the-moment interest; a desire to expand my horizons past their typical borders; it’s cheap…lottsa reasons, which is all I can say about Pontormo Rosso Fiorentino by Elisabetta Marchetti Letta for the “Library of Great Masters”…’cause it was a spur-of-the-moment interest in a cheap book. First, that confusing as hell title: Pontormo Rosso Fiorentino refers to “Pontormo” – also known as Jacopo Carucci – the Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine School; and “Rosso Fiorentino” – also known as Giovanni Battista di Jacopo and even “Il Rosso”, the Red – another Italian Mannerist painter likewise belonging to the Florentine school; so this is kind of a two-in-one overview of a couple of artists whose style and influence were similar.

Pontormo Rosso Fiorentino traces the lives and works of these two artists, examining the fundamental importance of ideas drawn from sculpture to them, and the place of Donatello as one of their main influences in this regard. And why not? Both were born barely three months apart in Florence in 1494; both were pupils of Andrea del Sarto; and both of their careers often ran parallel to one another, punctuated by matching dates that mark a series of professional achievements. Furthermore, whole swathes of the turbulent history of Florence, in particular, and Italy, as a whole, during the Renaissance is reflected in the biographies of these two (little known) artists, and for that reason alone this book was well worth…whatever I paid for it.