Daniele da Volterra's Rare Renaissance Works on View in Rome

Two rare Renaissance paintings by Daniele da Volterra (1509–1566), also known as il Braghettone for covering Michelangelo's nudes in the Last Judgment, are on display at the Galleria Corsini in Rome. The works, usually held in the private collection of the Conti Pannocchieschi d'Elci in Siena, date from the 1540s and reflect the artistic climate of Rome under Pope Paul III Farnese. The first painting, Elia nel deserto, synthesizes Michelangelo's muscular style with Raffaello's refinement filtered through Perin del Vaga, featuring an unusual Eucharistic iconography of bread and water as a response to Lutheran debates. The second, a Madonna with Child, Saint John the Baptist, and Saint Barbara, shows monumental spatial sense derived from Michelangelo's Last Judgment. Infrared reflectography reveals Daniele's meticulous working method. The exhibition also includes works by Jacopino del Conte and Marcello Venusti, artists connected to the Farnese circle and Michelangelo. Daniele da Volterra trained in Siena under Sodoma, Beccafumi, and Baldassarre Peruzzi, later collaborating with Perin del Vaga and Michelangelo, with whom he worked on the lost equestrian monument of King Henry II of France commissioned by Catherine de' Medici. His frescoes in Trinità dei Monti, including the Deposition in the Orsini Chapel, influenced later artists such as Peter Paul Rubens.