AQUILA Pietro

(Marsala or Palermo 1650 – Alcamo 1692)

Sicilian painter and engraver born in Marsala, according to some, or in Palermo, according to others.
He was trained at the school of the painter and engraver Pietro del Po from Palermo, like his teacher, he worked first in Sicily and then in Naples and Rome, where he followed an ecclesiastical career.

There are many valuable paintings that Pietro Aquila left in Palermo churches that have earned him the title of ‘respectable painter’ by the Baldinucci. But Peter emerged especially as a copper engraver, dedicating himself to the reproduction of many of the most significant paintings of which the sacred and profane buildings in Rome were rich at that time.
Like his master Pietro del Po, he founded his engraving style on the shape elaboration through the lines softened by the use of dots. This technique helped him in the interpretation of different authors: Raphael above all, and then Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Giovanni Lanfranco, Lazzaro Baldi, Ciro Ferri and finally Carlo Maratta, which Pietro Aquila had a deep friendship with.
His most important work is the reproduction of the frescoes of the Carracci in the Palazzo Farnese that he performed on commission of the most important Roman printer of that time: Gian Giacomo de Rossi.
Another important Pietro Aquila’s work was the reproduction, in partnership with Cesare Fantetti, of the “Bible of Raphael” in Vatican, realized on the committee of Gian Giacomo de Rossi, who intended to replace the illustrated Bibles from previous engravers on the market.