Passignano, Domenico Da, or Domenico Cresti

Passignano, Domenico Da, Or Domenico Cresti,

Cavaliere, an Italian painter of note, was born at Florence about the middle of the 16th century. Some accounts give 1560, but this is probably too late; Baglione says he was eighty years old when he died, in 1638, which would place his birth in 1557 or 1558. He was the pupil of Federigo Zucchero, and lived some time in Venice, where he acquired a decided preference for the Venetian school of painting, and especially the works of Paolo Veronese. He acquired a great reputation at Rome, where he was employed by the popes Paul V and Urban VIII; he painted The Crucifixion of St. Peter for the Cappella Clementina in the great church of St. Peter at the Vatican, for which he was created Cavaliere dell' Abito di Cristo. He spent the latter part of his life at Florence, and he was one of the most influential of those painters who contributed towards the reform of the Florentine school by improving the taste for color, and rendering the mannered anatomical school less popular. Passignano was the friend and associate of Cigoli, and is said to have been the master of Lodovico Caracci while in Florence. He had many scholars, of whom Pietro Sorri of Siena was the most distinguished.