Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, known as il Morazzone (Morazzone, 1573 – Piacenza, 1626), was an Italian painter who worked mainly in Lombardy and Piedmont. He belongs to the group of early 17th-century Lombard painters who combined the piety promoted by Charles Borromeo with an emerging naturalism and a classicism inherited from his Roman training.
As a child he moved to Rome, where he was probably taught by Ventura Salimbeni and may also have worked in the workshop of the Cavaliere d'Arpino. Only two frescoes at San Silvestro survive from that period. Around 1597 he left Rome, and by 1598 he was in Varese. From then on he worked mainly on religious commissions, including chapels at the Sacro Monte di Varallo and the Sacro Monte di Varese, where his dramatic realism drew on the example of Gaudenzio Ferrari. He also painted altarpieces and frescoes in Como, Milan, Novara, Borgomanero and Pavia, and in his final years received commissions from the Savoy court.
In 1626 he was called to Piacenza to paint the frescoes of the cathedral dome, but he died before completing them, and Guercino finished the work. His pupils included Isidoro Bianchi and the brothers Danedi. His legacy lies in early 17th-century Lombard painting, where religious feeling and realism were combined with a more orderly composition than that of Roman Mannerism.
Works (3)
The painting depicts the martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, with his beheading as its central moment. It belongs to the religious art genre and is dated 1612, the work of painter Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli. It is held at the Palazzo Bianco. Based on the available information, the commission and further compositional details cannot be specified.
Oil painting from 1613 by Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, showing Mary Magdalene being carried up to heaven by a group of angels, a religious subject. The work is now held by the Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation. With the available information, the commission and the circumstances of its making cannot be established, so the reading stays with the scene and its technique.
Where to see the work
- Palazzo Bianco Genoa · 1
- Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Dresden · 1
- Cavallini Sgarbi Foundation Riva del Po · 1
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Giuseppe Cesari 1568–1640