PhD Program in Historical studies
Mannerism and the Italian influence in the Viceroyalty of Peru: Angelino Medoro
Angelino Medoro was born in Naples around 1565. Artistically trained in Italy where he signed his paintings as “Romano pittore“, he went, on an unknown date, to Seville, where there is still a Flagellation of Christ of his. From 1586 was in Santa Fe de Bogota, where he left an abundant production, as well as in other places in Columbia. In 1592 he moved to Quito, where he worked for the Dominicans and had some of the initiators of the painting school of Quito among his pupils. In 1600 he went to Lima, where he worked for a long time for various Religious Orders. Among the numerous works, in Lima there was a large canvas, now lost, Nuestra Señora de la Merced (Our Lady of Mercy), painted for the refectory of the convent of the Mercedarians for whom he worked for a long time, as well as paintings for the altarpiece of the Church of San Ildefonso (Saint Ilephonse). On the death of Saint Rose of Lima in 1617, Medoro was called to portray her. There are many variations made by local artists of the painting, venerated at the shrine of Saint Rose. The latter developed the painting school of Cusco in the seventeenth century. In 1618 Medoro painted an Immaculate Conception for the convent of Saint Augustine, surrounded by representations of the litanies, whose iconography extended throughout the Viceroyalty of Peru. On the outer door of the Church of San Francisco (Saint Francis) of Lima there is a triptych of his of the Passion. A Saint Bonaventure, on the door of the same convent has also been attributed to him. The largest group of his paintings are in the Franciscan convent in Lima. Medoro returned to Spain after 1620. Little is known of his second stay in the Iberian peninsula, except for a painting dated from 1627 and his will which was made out in Seville in 1631, which is why he has been held to have died in this city shortly after.
Through the works of Bernardo Bitti, Matteo Pérez de Alessio and Angelino Medoro, late Italian Renaissance Mannerism therefore had a very strong influence on colonial art in the Andes. (image: Angelino Medoro, La Virgen con el Niño, San Francisco y Santa Clara).