10 - CAMPI, Antonio (Cremona, 1523–1587) “The Death of Lucretia.” Large oil on canvas, 125 x 150 cm. Re-stretched and minor restoration. Set in a large 19th-century wooden frame with gilded stucco.

CAMPI, Antonio (Cremona, 1523–1587) “The Death of Lucretia.” Large oil on canvas, 125 x 150 cm. Re-stretched and minor restoration. Set in a large 19th-century wooden frame with gilded stucco. Provenance: former collection of François-Joseph MOREAU (1789–1862), physician to King Louis Philippe (as attested by a wax seal) In a private collection since the early 20th century, then passed down through the family. Lucretia was a woman renowned for her beauty and, even more so, for her virtue. The wife of Tarquinius Collatinus, a powerful man close to King Tarquinius, the young woman took her own life after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, the king’s son. Lucretia is an exemplum (the story of a person whose actions are worthy of imitation), for she did not wish to set an example of a woman who had survived such dishonor. It was following Lucretia’s rape that Rome is said to have transitioned from a monarchy to a republic in 509 B.C., as noted by numerous ancient authors, such as Livy. Antonio Campi was an Italian painter, engraver, and architect. He began as a student of his brother Giulio, then worked in Italy—in Cremona, of course, but also in Brescia and Milan. A student of his older brother Giulio, he began with an altarpiece for the Church of Sant’Ilario in Cremona, dated 1546. In it, he displays the influences of Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, and even Primaticcio—influences that are equally evident in the paintings he executed with his brother Giulio for the loggia in Brescia (1549). Around 1550, he collaborated—again with Giulio—on the decoration of the Palazzo Pallavicino in Torre Pallavicina, creating highly refined and colorful mythological paintings. During these same years, he made his first trip to Milan, where he began decorating the Church of San Paolo Converso with the fresco cycle in the presbytery (1564) and where he painted an altarpiece, The Resurrection of Christ, for Santa Maria presso San Celso. His painting began to be characterized by a dramatic and spectacular style that is said to have earned him the favor of Archbishop Carlo Borromeo, a leading figure of the Counter-Reformation. Upon returning to Cremona, he painted the *Pietà* (1566) for the dome and the *Decollazione del Battista* for the church of San Sigismondo, a work that already displays a characteristic and pronounced chiaroscuro, created by a strong lateral light source that Roberto Longhi would define as a precursor to Caravaggio’s painting. These very intense years were marked by a wealth of works: numerous frescoes (again for the Church of San Sigismondo and for those of San Vittore in Meda), canvases (the *Sacra Conversazione*, now in Brera, *San Girolamo*, now at the Prado Museum in El Escorial; *The Beheading of John the Baptist* for San Paolo Converso in Milan; and *The Adoration of the Shepherds* for the Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Croce in Crema). Among his most accomplished works in Milan, the following stand out: the triptych in the Church of San Marco in Milan (1577), now housed in the small museum attached to the church, and the two paintings in the Gallarati Chapel at the Church of Sant’Angelo (1583–1584), with an almost Caravaggesque tone, and the decoration of the vault of the Church of San Paolo Converso, featuring a spectacular perspective and figures of Christ, the Virgin, and the Apostles rendered with dramatic intensity—almost a foreshadowing of Baroque painting—executed in collaboration with his brother Vincenzo. The painter was featured in an exhibition in Turin at the Canesso Gallery from Dec. 7, 2023, to March 10, 2024. Expert: René MILLET in Paris; with our thanks to Mr. Franco Frangi for his assistance in attributing the painting