Every morning I go to my office in Piazza San Frediano and the beginning of the street Anguillara, beyond where it is at the corner of Via San Frediano, ten meters from the splendid facade of the basilica of the saint that diverted the river Serchio, meet and greet Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, a great painter of the eighteenth century Lucca. Under his bust, made by C. From Puget, reads: "A Pompeo Batoni that brought back the art of studying the great masters of truth was found among the first painters of the eighteenth century. Here, the birthplace of the XXV in January MDCCVIII citizens put in MCMXI. Born in Lucca in 1708, therefore, Pompeo Girolamo Batoni was started at the technique of drawing by his father, who was a successful goldsmith, and the artists Giandomenico Domenico Lombardi and heath. With the support of the Lucchese family and of some patrons who believed in the talent of the boy, only nineteen years he was able to go to Rome to be produced on the traditional, practicing drawing live models and copy the works of Raphael, Annibale Carracci and Guercino at the Vatican and the Villa Farnesina. It was in this aristocratic villa suburban fell in love with the beautiful daughter of the guardian and took her hand in marriage. Lucca's father and patrons did not approve the marriage of low rank and took away any subsidies. Batoni was then forced to make a living designing and selling copies of works and portraits by masters of way. After the most difficult moment, he began to attend school by Agostino Masucci and especially that of Francis Ferdinand, the Emperor said, in which assimilated the Roman classicism, and to collaborate with leading landscape architects, Locatelli and as Van Bloemen. He was thus the possibility of being known and appreciated by people of high rank. He arrived as the first major commission: the Madonna and Child with Saints for the church of San Gregorio al Celio, which was followed by Christ in Glory and Saints altarpiece for the Church of Saints Celso and Giuliano. In the mid-thirties he was already a very important artist and works from that period as the Presentation in the Temple in the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Brescia, the Triumph of Venice at the Raleigh Art Museum in the U.S., the discovery of Time and Truth four Allegories of the Palazzo Colonna in Rome, the delivery of the Keys and the Evangelists at the Quirinale. In 1741 he entered the Roman Fine arts "San Luca" and in 1743 (the date is shown at the bottom right) painted the Ecstasy of St Catherine of Siena, Lucca, which is admired in the Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi. About this oil on canvas that is expressed in its Isa Belli Bartali "Lucca - City Guide:" The psychological reality of the subject - the feeling of mystical grace, sharing almost succor of angels, passionate pathos - is summed up in a supreme mastery of language that expresses itself in the gentle beauty of the lines in the harmonic correspondences of the figures, the effects of light and precious dematerialized color space: red and green reflections, warm shadows that draped almost le figure minori lasciando in piena luce zenitale – a folgorare i biondi puri della veste – la morbida figura della santa”. Negli anni cinquanta era ormai considerato, a livello europeo, il miglior pittore italiano. Ebbe commissioni importantissime, come la Caduta di Simon Mago per la basilica di San Pietro, oggi in Santa Maria degli Angeli. Oltre ai dipinti di natura religiosa e alle opere a soggetto storico e mitologico, come Achille alla corte di Licomede agli Uffizi, Ercole fanciullo e Ercole al bivio a Palazzo Pitti e la Fuga da Troia nella Galleria Sabauda di Torino, l’artista lucchese si specializzò come ritrattista e divenne il pittore prediletto dell’aristocrazia europea. I suoi compensi schizzarono alle stelle e furono soprattutto princes and kings to commission the works: by Maria Carolina of Naples to Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa of Austria Catherine of Russia, Emperor Joseph II to Pope Pius VI. After realizing other important types of works celebrating, as the Allegory of religion and happiness for the death of two children of Ferdinand IV in the Royal Palace of Caserta, and Teti Chionne relies on the education of Achilles and the Continence of Scipio to ' Hermitage in St. Petersburg in the last years of his life he devoted himself mainly to the implementation of the seven altarpieces commissioned by Maria Francesca Braganza, queen of Portugal, for the Church of the Sacred Heart all'Estrela Lisbon. In Lucca, in palazzo Cenami, uno degli unici tre (insieme con i palazzi Mazzarosa e Minutoli-Tegrimi) delle antiche famiglie della città che conservano ancora gli arredi originari, possiamo osservare l’autoritratto dell’artista, firmato “P. Batoni pinxit Romae an. 1772”. Nel palazzo Mazzarosa, che “a causa del gran numero di contanti che questo cavaliere tiene in casa” possiede una robusta porta di ferro, “cosa che a Lucca – precisa G.C. Martini verso la fine del Settecento – non è permessa a nessun altro”, e dove è conservata la più considerevole collezione privata della città, si trovano vari dipinti del Batoni: Allegoria della Sapienza, Allegoria della Giustizia e della Pace, St. Joseph, Our Lady of the book and Death of Lucrezia. Two paintings are also preserved in the palace-Minutoli Tegrimo: Atalanta and Meleager Prometheus cries Animator. In the aforementioned Museum Villa Guinigi there is also the portrait of Archbishop Giovanni Domenico Mansi, coming from the library of Santa Maria Corteorlandini, and the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, that the stone under the left foot of the saint is dated "PB 1749" and is the church of St. Pontian. Pompeo Girolamo Batoni died in Rome on February 4, 1787. Lucca has not forgotten and, in addition to the bust of dell'Anguillara way, has also named a city street, the stretch of ring road between the square and the Martyrs of Liberty Avenue Agostino Marti.
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