Alessandro Turchi

Alessandro Turchi (1578 – 22 January 1649) was an Italian painter of the early Baroque, born and active mainly in Verona, and moving late in life to Rome. He also went by the name Alessandro Veronese or the nickname L'Orbetto. His style has been described as soft and Caravaggesque at the same time.

Biography

Turchi initially trained with Felice Riccio (il Brusasorci) in Verona. By 1603, he was working as independent painter, and in 1606–1609, Turchi painted the organ shutters for the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona. When Brusasorci died in 1605, Turchi and his fellow painter Pasquale Ottino completed a series of their deceased master's canvases. In 1610, he completed an Assumption altarpiece for the church of San Luca of Verona. In 1612, the Veronese Guild of the Goldsmiths commissioned from Turchi an altarpiece, today lost, of the Madonna and Saints. On leaving the school of Riccio, he went to Venice, where he worked for a time under Carlo Cagliari.

By 1616, Turchi traveled to Rome and participated in the fresco decoration depicting the Gathering of Manna for the Sala Reggia of the Quirinal Palace, and painting a Christ, Magdalen, and Angels for cardinal Scipione Borghese.¹ In competition with Andrea Sacchi and Pietro da Cortona, he painted some pictures in the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. In 1619, he sent an altarpiece of the 40 martyrs for the Chapel of the Innocents in the church of Santo Stefano, Verona, to hang next to paintings by Pasquale Ottino and Marcantonio Bassetti. He also painted a Flight into Egypt for the church of San Romualdo, Rome; a Holy Family for San Lorenzo in Lucina; and a in . He was much employed on cabinet pictures, representing historical subjects, which he frequently painted on black marble. Among his pupils, and (il Gobbino), practiced in , the former painting copies of his master's works, which were often taken for originals.