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ALESSANDRO MAGANZA
Vicenza 1556 ~ after 1630 Vicenza
Alessandro is
the best-known member of a family of painters. He was apparently trained by his father and then in the workshop of Giovanni Antonio Fasolo, a follower of Paolo Veronese. When Fasolo died in 1572, Alessandro went to
Venice where he absorbed the ideas of the leading painters: Jacopo Tintoretto, Veronese and Palma Giovane. The deeply severe tone of his religious painting is due to the current teachings of the Counter-Reformation.
However, he also produced the decorative frescoes for the inner cupola of Palladio's famous Villa della Rotonda just outside Vicenza.1
Our animated sheet is typical of Maganza's drawing technique. It is preparatory for the painting of Seven Martyred Virgins in the Seminario Vescovile, Church of Santa Maria in Vanzo, Padua.2 The style of this painting is similar to that of his scenes of The Passion in the Cappella del Sacramento, Vicenza Cathedral3 dated I600 to I610.4 Our drawing shows the Virgin Mary seated on clouds above with angels holding palms and crowns of martyrdom for the saints below. From left to right the saints are identifiable as: Agatha pressing her bosom, Agnes with her lamb, Justina with her dagger, Catherine with her wheel, Apollonia with her pincers, Lucy with her eyes on a saucer and Cecilia with her organ. The angel on the extreme right is holding Cecilia's special crown of roses and lilies.
I. D. Gisolfi, The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, Vol. 20, p.86
2. A.M. Spiazzi, in AA.V.V., Il Seminano di Gregono Barbarigo: Trecento anni di arte, cultuta e fede, ed. P. Gios and A.M. Spiazzi, Padua,
1997, p. 71 and fig. 14 (in colour), p. 78, and fig 14 (in colour), p. 78, n. 25
3. ibid
4. Gisolfi, loc. cit
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