Pietro da Cortona

Pietro Berrettini, known as Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) was a painter and architect. Cortona left for Rome in 1612 and was largely influenced by the study of the great masters of the sixteenth century, but also by the work of his contemporaries such as Annibale Carracci and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Under the protection of the people closest to Pope Urban VIII such as Cassiano dal Pozzo, Giulio Sacchetti and Cardinal Francesco Barberini, he emerged as one of the leading artists of Baroque Rome. In 1634 he was elected prince of the Accademia di San Luca. For ten years (1637-1647) he worked in Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Among his paintings: The Rape of the Sabine Women  (1627-1629); The Triumph of Divine Providence, in the vault of the hall of Palazzo Barberini in Rome (1633-1639); The frescoes in the Sala della Stufa in Palazzo Pitti in Florence (1637-1647); Stories of Aeneas in Palazzo Pamphili in Rome (1651-1654). There are outstanding examples of his architectural production in the Roman churches of Santa Maria della Pace, Santa Maria in Via Lata and San Carlo al Corso.