16 Facts About Carlo Maratta

Carlo Maratta was a fresco and canvas painter who painted in a wide range of genres, including history and portrait painting.

Carlo Maratta is the leading representative of the classicizing style in the Italian Late Baroque.

Carlo Maratta worked for prominent clients in Rome, including various popes.

Carlo Maratta moved to Rome in 1636 in the company of family friend Don Corintio Benicampi, secretary to Taddeo Barberini who was a nephew of pope Urbano VIII and brother of Cardinals Francesco Barberini and Antonio Barberini.

Carlo Maratta had been encouraged to do so by the painter Andrea Camassei, who had seen the young Maratta's drawings.

Carlo Maratta soon became an apprentice in the workshop of Andrea Sacchi.

Carlo Maratta developed a close relationship with Sacchi and would remain in his workshop until his master's death in 1661.

Carlo Maratta's painting at this time was close to the classicism espoused by Sacchi and was far more restrained and composed than the Baroque exuberance of Pietro da Cortona's paintings.

Carlo Maratta's workshop became the most prominent art studio in Rome of his time and, after the death of Bernini in 1680, he became the leading artist in Rome.

Unlike the nave fresco in the nearby church of the Gesu which Giovan Battista Gaulli was painting at the same time, Carlo Maratta did not employ illusionistic effects.

Carlo Maratta's scene remained within its frame and used few figures in line with the principles of sparsity of figures championed by Sacchi.

Carlo Maratta painted numerous English sitters during their visits to Rome on the Grand Tour, having sketched antiquities for John Evelyn as early as 1645.

Carlo Maratta legally recognized her as his daughter in 1698 and upon becoming a widower in 1700, Maratta married the girl's mother.

Carlo Maratta later married the poet Giambattista Felice Zappi and became a prominent poet and member of the Academy of Arcadia.

Carlo Maratta continued to run his studio into old age even when he could no longer paint.

Carlo Maratta died in 1713 in Rome, and was buried there in Santa Maria degli Angeli.