Gaetano Lapis

Gaetano Lapis (1706–1773) was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque period.

Communion of the Apostles in the Cagli Cathedral
St Michael Archange in San Giuseppe, Cagli

Biography

Lapis was born on 13 August 1706 in the central Italian city of Cagli, the son of Filippo Lapis, a wool merchant, and his wife Olimpia Orlandini of Cantiano.[1][2][3]

He moved to Rome at a young age and, after a brief apprenticeship with Cristoforo Creo, entered the workshop of Sebastiano Conca, whom he may have met in 1720 when Conca was working on his Madonna and Child with Saint Teresa in Cagli Cathedral. Lapis later moved to the workshop of Conca's cousin Giovanni Conca.[4]

In his 1787 biography of Lapis, Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi records that Sebastiano Conca "was fond of his new pupil and taught him with devotion even though he saw he was adopting a style totally different from the one he adhered to".[5] During his time in Conca's workshop he was given the nickname Il Carraccetto, a reference to the influence of Bolognese masters of the previous century such as Carracci, Guido Reni and Domenichino.[6]

Lapis became a member of the Academy of the Virtuosi in 1739, and in 1741 he was introduced by Sebastiano Conca as a member of the Accademia di San Luca.[7] By 1754, he was living permanently in Rome.[8] The list of his pupils includes Antonio Cavallucci.[9]

From 1766, he was commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1734-1782) and his brother Marcantonio IV Borghese (1730-1780) to work on modernizing the church of Santa Caterina da Siena a Via Giulia and then of Palazzo Borghese in Rome.[10]

A document in the archive of the Accademia di San Luca records the funeral expenses for the "late academician Gaetano Lapis", indicating that he died in April 1773.

Works

ROME

MARCHE

Urbino

Cagli

  • Cathedral - The Eternal Father; Gathering of Manna (1756); Communion of the Apostles (1756); Saint Andrew Avellino (1758)
  • Church of San Francesco - Miracle of the Madonna of the Snow (1730)
  • Church of San Giuseppe - Saint Michael Archangel (1764)
  • Church of San Nicolò - Miracle of Saint Nicholas of Bari (1756); Allegories of the Splendour of Saint Nicholas of Bari (1759)
  • Church of San Pietro - Annunciation and Archangel Gabriel: Virgin with Child and Saints Peter, Paul and Scholastico
  • Church of San Filippo - Death of Saint Francis Saverio (1735); Ecstacy of Saint Philip Neri (1754)
  • Church of Santa Chiara - Glory of Saint Clare; Saint Cecilia, Saint Agnes, Saint Ursula, Saint Apollonia, Saint Margaret; Pietà (1733)
  • Church of San Domenico - Presentation in the Temple

Jesi

  • Cathedral - Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (1743)

TUSCANY

Siena

UMBRIA

Gubbio

  • Church of Santa Lucia - Saint Lucy
  • Church of the Madonna del Prato - Saint Francis of Paola

Bibliography

  • Arseni, Carlo, Immagine di Cagli, Calosci-Cortona, 1989
  • De Rossi, Giovanni Gherardo, Vita di Gaetano Lapis pittore di Cagli, in Memorie per le Belle Arti, Anno III, 1787.
  • Mazzacchera, Alberto and Benedetta Montevecchi, Gaetano Lapis. I dipinti di Cagli, Urbania, 1994.
  • Mazzacchera, Alberto, Il forestiere in Cagli. Palazzi, chiese e pitture di una antica città e terre tra Catria e Nerone, Urbania, 1997.
  • Mazzacchera, Alberto, L'esordio profano di Gaetano Lapis, in "Atti e studi - Accademia Raffaello", XIV, 2015, 1/2, pp. 91-108.
  • Michel, Olivier, Gaetano Lapis in casa sua: lettura di un inventario, in Gaetano Lapis e la cultura artistica nelle Marche a metà Settecento, Urbania, 2005.
  • Rosini, Giovanni (1847). Storia della Pittura Italiana esposta coi Monumenti, (Epoca Quarta: Dal Carraci all'Appiani); Volume VII. Presso Niccolò Capurro, Pisa; Original from Oxford University digitized Jan 4, 2007. pp. 86.
  • Zandri, Giuliana, Conferenza commemorativa in Onoranze a Gaetano Lapis nel II centenario della morte 1776-1976, Urbania, 1976.

References

  1. ^ Treccani Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 63 (2004)
  2. ^ Mazzacchera & Montevecchi, 1994, p.10
  3. ^ Arseni, 1989, p.222
  4. ^ Mazzacchera & Montevecchi, 1994, p.10
  5. ^ De Rossi, Giovanni Gherardo, "Vita di Gaetano Lapis pittore di Cagli", in Memorie di Belle Arti, Anno III, 1787
  6. ^ Mazzacchera, 1997, p.29.
  7. ^ Mazzacchera & Montevecchi, 1994, p.12
  8. ^ Mazzacchera & Montevecchi, 1994, p.13
  9. ^ Vita di Antonio Cavallucci da Sermoneta pittore; by Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi; Venice 1796, page 13.
  10. ^ Mazzacchera, 2015, p.91