SCARAMUCCIA Luigi

‘Perugino’ (Perugia 1616 – Milan 1680)

Painter, engraver and art writer, pupil before of his father Giovanni Antonio, known as the Old Scaramuccia, and then of Guido Reni. He has been active in several Italian cities: Rome, Bologna, Milan and Pavia.
He is also known for being a careful biographer and historian of the baroque art.
His book ‘Le finezze de’ pennelli italiani ammirate e studiate da Girupeno (anagram of Perugino) sotto la scorta…’  (published in Pavia in 1674) was one of the first collections of biographies of artists of the Baroque period, active mainly in Bologna and Milan.
In painting and engraving he was a pupil of Guido Reni in Bologna where, together with painters Lorenzo Pasinelli and Carlo Cignani, he frescoed the Sala Farnese of Palazzo Accursio. He went to Milan in 1670, where he executed a painting of Cardinal Federico Borromeo visiting plague victims during the plague of 1630 for the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Under the guidance of Procaccini, he collaborated with Antonio Busca, Johann Christoph Storer and Moncalvo to the realization of the frescoes of the Chapel of the Crucifix in the church of San Marco in Milan. The engraving production includes a number of high-quality work but very limited and is placed in a secondary position with respect to the much wider pictorial activity.