GIROLAMO DEL

See also:

• GIROLAMO DEL PACCHIA

PACCHIA  , and PACCHIAROTTO (or PACCHIAROTTI), JACOPO, two painters of the Sienese school . One or other of them produced some good pictures, which used to pass as the performance of Perugino; reclaimed from Perugino, they were assigned to Pacchiarotto; now it is sufficiently settled that the good works are by G. del Pacchia, while nothing of Pacchiarotto's own doing transcends mediocrity . The mythical Pacchiarotto who worked actively at Fontainebleau has no authenticity . Girolamo del Pacchia, son of a Hungarian cannon-founder, was born, probably in Siena, in 1477 . Having joined a turbulent club named the Bardotti he disappeared from Siena in 1535, when the club was dispersed, and nothing of a later date is known about him . His most celebrated work is a fresco of the "Nativity of the Virgin," in the chapel of S Bernardino, Siena, graceful and tender, with a certain artificiality . Another renowned fresco, in the church of S Caterina, represents that saint on her visit to St Agnes of Montepulciano, who, having just expired, raises her foot by miracle . In the National Gallery of London there is a " Virgin and Child." The forms of G. del Pacchia are fuller than those of Perugino (his principal model of style appears to have been in reality Franciabigio) ; the drawing is not always unexceptionable; the female heads have sweetness and beauty of feature, and some of the colouring has noticeable force . Pacchiarotto was born in Siena in 1474 . In 1530 he took part in the conspiracy of the Libertini and Popolani, and in 1534 he joined the Bardotti . He had to hide for his life in 1535, and was concealed by the Observantine fathers in a tomb in the church of S Giovanni . He was stuffed in close to a new-buried corpse, and got covered with vermin and dreadfully exhausted by the close of the second day .

After a while he resumed work; he was exiled in 1539, but recalled in the following

year, and in that year or soon afterwards he died . Among the few extant works with which he is still credited is an " Assumption of the Virgin," in the Carmine of Siena . Other works rather dubiously attributed to him are in Siena, Buonconvento, Florence, Rome and London .