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 Dido's Death, Guercino  Dido's Death, Guercino, Spada palace Gian Francesco Barbieri (Called Guercino Cento 1591- Bologna 1666). He studied at Bertozzi’s and Gennari’s school, then he was in contact with Carracci, who got very impressed by his skill. He produced his first works in 1615, and for sure they are the best ones of all his life (Susanna, S.Guglielmo d’Aquitania, La Maria Maddalena, La sepoltura di Santa Petronilla). In 1623,after a short stay in Rome, he went back home and produced more paintings. In 1626 he decorated Piacenza’s dome and, in 1630, he painted “Christ appearing to Magdalen”. Then he started a period of artistic decadence and his works were less beautiful. His designs are the best XVII century ones. “The Dido’s death ” Spada Palace
This work was commissioned to the painter by Cardinal Bernardino for the Queen of France Maria de' Medici and paid for it 400 scudi in 1631, after the Queen escaped to Belgium for political reasons. The episode is narrated in Aeneid (IV, 642-705): failed every attempt to convince Aeneas not to leave, Dido asked her sister Anna to prepare a pyre in the courtyard of the palace on the pretext of burning the things of her beloved one. As soon as she saw the Trojan ships leave, she got on the pyre and killed herself with Aeneas’s sword. All around, her servants mourn her death, while her sister, richly dressed, opens her arms in sign of pain. On the background Aeneas’s ships are going off the coast while Cupid goes away. On the right a character with hat and a big sword points at the scene for the spectator as if it were a drama performance. The work, remarkable for its stage-designing and for the wealth of the customs is rendered with plastic and coloured sense, characteristic peculiarity of the painter’s production .Spada Palace The Gallery is situated on the first floor, in the XVII century wing of the Palace, which belonged to cardinal Girolamo Capodiferro (1502-1559) who had it built on pre-existing buildings belonging to his family, starting from the end of 1548, by architect Bartolomeo Baronino (1551-1554) of Monferrato . Almost completed during 1550’s Jubilee, with its façade and courtyard embellished with precious stucco decorations and with the same pictorial cycles as on the Noble Floor, Capodiferro Palace passed in the next century to cardinal Bernardino Spada (1594-1661) who bought it in July 1632 from a Capodiferro heir, for 3200 scudos. Soon after buying the Palace, Bernardino started a series of works which lasted thirty years, conferring to the Palace in the end a new and more appreciable aspect.. |
