SALIMBENI Ventura

(Siena 1568 – 1613)

Mannierist Italian painter and engraver, one of the last artists of the Sienese school of the Renaissance. Son of Arcangelo Salimbeni, under the guidance of his father he studied painting in Siena with his half-brother Francesco Vanni.
In 1588 he moved to Rome to collaborate to a fresco in the Vatican Library.
On the commission of Cardinal Bonifazio Aldobrandini he performed numerous and valuable paintings in the Church of the Gesù and in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, in which the influence of Mannerist painters such as Cavalier d’Arpino and Cherubino Alberti is recognized.
During this stay in Rome he made etchings of which, unfortunately, only seven have come down to us. Returned to Siena, he represented one of the last mannerist school artists in the period of transition to the Baroque style.
From 1595 to 1603 he performed pictorial cycles for various Sienese churches such as Santo Spirito and the Oratory of the Holy Trinity (whose preparatory sketches are now kept in the Uffizi museum) and Florentine churches as the Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata and the church of San Salvatore al Monte. He also left important works in Umbria, especially in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi and in the Basilica of San Pietro in Perugia and also in Pisa in the Cathedral and in the church of San Frediano.
The Pontifical Ambassador, Cardinal Bonifazio Bevilacqua, who had commissioned several works to Ventura Salimbeni, was so enthusiastic about the result to award Ventura Salimbeni with the Order of the Speron d’Oro, the most prestigious of the Holy See.
The influence of Federico Barocci and Domenico Beccafumi is quite clearly recognized in his pictorial and engraving production.