Cristoforo Roncalli

Who was Cristoforo Roncalli?

Cristoforo Roncalli was an Italian mannerist painter. He was one of the three painters known as il Pomarancio.

Roncalli was born in Pomarance, a town near Volterra. His training occurred in Tuscany, and around 1578, he relocated to Rome, Italy where he worked for Niccolò Circignani.

Most of his fresco work was in Rome, though he worked for a decade in Loreto, where he decorated the New Sacristy. In Rome he decorated the cupola of the church of Santa Maria di Loreto and of San Silvestro in Capite. He helped decorate the Oratory of San Filippo Neri in Vallicella. He also painted for the Oratory of Santissimo Crocifisso, the Baptism of Constantine and St. Simon in the transept of San Giovanni in Laterano, and designed the mosaics in the Cappella Clementina in the St. Peter's Basilica. One of his pupils from Siena was Alessandro Casolano, and his son Ilario Casolano.

Roncalli was named a Cavaliere of Christ in 1607. He died in Rome in 1626.