\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Italian painter.\par
We know little about the early years of Barocci, who was born in Urbino in 1535. His first authentic work dates
from 1555, when he painted \i Saint Cecilia\i0 for the cathedral of his native city. Three years later he executed the \i Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian\i0 , for Urbino Cathedral as well. He most likely made a journey to Rome during this period, and retu
rned to the city, in any case, in the beginning of the 1560Æs.\par
In Rome he joined the circle of Cardinal Giulio della Rovere and collaborated, between 1561 and 1563, on the fresco decoration of Pius IVÆs villa in the Vatican Gardens. In 1565 he sudde
nly decided to return to Urbino, where he remained until his death, in 1612.\par
In the sixties he painted works like the \i San Giovanni Madonna\i0 and the \i Crucifixion with Mourners\i0 (both in the Galleria Nazionale, Urbino); in the \i Crucifixio
n\i0 , Barocci inserted a view of Urbino as a backdrop for the first time.\par
At the end of the decade he painted the splendid \i Deposition\i0 in Perugia Cathedral. Over the following years he executed, among other works, the \i Rest on the Flight in
to Egypt\i0 , a popular subject that he repeated several times with slight variations, and the \i Madonna del Gatto\i0 (National Gallery, London).\par
Between 1575 and 1579 he painted the famous altarpiece of the \i Madonna del Popolo\i0 for the churc
h of Santa Maria della Pieve at Arezzo (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence).\par
In the following decade, between 1582 and 1584, he was engaged on perhaps his best-known work, the altarpiece representing the \i Annunciation\i0 (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome)
for the chapel of the dukes of Urbino in the sanctuary of Loreto during the same time that Federico Zuccari frescoed its ceiling. \par
The next few years saw him at work on a many different commissions, including the \i Visitation\i0 for the Chiesa Nuo
va in Rome and numerous altarpieces for churches in the Marche.\par
The \i Crucifixion with Saint Sebastian\i0 in Genoa Cathedral and the \i Last Supper\i0 for the cathedral of his own city date from the end of the century. One of his last works was t
he \i Blessed Michelina\i0 (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome), which already displays a fully seventeenth-century sensibility.
