PhD Program in Historical studies
Mannerism and the Italian influence in the Viceroyalty of Peru: Matteo Pérez de Alessio
Matteo Pérez de Alessio, also known as Matteo da Lecce, was born around 1547 in Lecce. In 1573 he was admitted to the Academy of San Luca and worked in the mural decoration of the Villa Mondragone in Frascati and the Villa d’Este in Tivoli. Between 1573 and 1574 made his most important Roman work, The quarrel of the body of Moses, a fresco on the wall of the entrance to the Sistine Chapel, which replaced the wall paintings on the same subject painted by Ghirlandaio and damaged by some architectural renovations. Between 1576 and 1581 the artist worked in Malta, where he painted a series of frescoes in the hall of the ambassadors of the palace of La Valletta, with various scenes of the siege of the island by the Turkish fleet. After a new stay in Rome he went to Seville, where, in 1584, he painted a large fresco of Saint Christopher that still can be seen in the cathedral of the city where it was signed by “Matteo Pérez de Alessio, Italiano.”
Alessio arrived in Lima at the end of the decade of 1580, where he entered the circle who worked for the court of the viceroy. Here, in addition to painting the portrait of the Viceroy García Hurtado de Mendoza, began painting and exerted a major influence on his numerous disciples. In the cathedral of Lima painted a large painting of Saint Christopher, a replica of the one he left in Seville, now lost. He also painted a Saint Paul and Saint Peter for what was once the chapel of the cathedral, works also lost, as the majority of his paintings. The wall paintings are attributed to him in the chapel of Captain Villegas, in the church of La Merced, Lima, and a Virgin of Bethlehem, probably painted for the Archbishop Toribio de Mogrovejo. There is a large number of copies and variations of these works in Lima, Cuzco and other Peruvian cities: the disciples of Alessio perpetuated the style of the Italian master until the mid-seventeenth century, attempting to obtain pigments similar to those in Europe using local products according to his instructions (image: Matteo Pérez de Alessio, The quarrel of the body of Moses).