Andrea Pozzo

author

Andrea Pozzo

1642–1709

Best known for dazzling Baroque ceilings that seem to open into the sky, this Jesuit artist turned painting into a grand optical illusion. His frescoes, architecture, and writing on perspective helped define the theatrical spirit of the Counter-Reformation.

1 Audiobook

Rules and Examples of Perspective proper for Painters and Architects, etc. In English and Latin: Containing a most easie and expeditious method to delineate in perspective all designs relating to architecture

Rules and Examples of Perspective proper for Painters and Architects, etc. In English and Latin: Containing a most easie and expeditious method to delineate in perspective all designs relating to architecture

by Andrea Pozzo

About the author

Born in Trent on November 30, 1642, Andrea Pozzo became a Jesuit brother and built a remarkable career as a painter, architect, decorator, and theorist. He is especially famous for mastering quadratura—illusionistic painting that makes flat ceilings and walls appear to expand into vast architectural space.

His most celebrated work is in the Church of Sant'Ignazio in Rome, where he created a soaring ceiling fresco and a famously convincing painted "dome." He later worked in Vienna as well, and his book Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum spread his ideas about perspective far beyond Italy.

Pozzo died in Vienna on August 31, 1709. Today he is remembered as one of the great magicians of Baroque art: an artist who blended faith, mathematics, and spectacle to make viewers look up in wonder.