Niccolò Circignani

Who was Niccolò Circignani?

Niccolò Circignani was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance or Mannerist period.

Born in Pomarance, he is one of three Italian painters called Pomarancio. His first works are documented from the 1560s, where he painted frescos on the Old Testament stories for the Vatican Belvedere, where he may have worked alongside Santi di Tito and Giovanni de' Vecchi. He also completed altarpieces for Orvieto, Umbertide, Città di Castello as well as Città della Pieve.

He worked with Hendrick van den Broeck, likely a member of the Flemish family of painters that includes Crispin van den Broeck, in Orvieto Cathedral. He painted frescoes in the church of the Maestà delle Volte in Perugia, the Resurrection and an Annunciation.

He painted frescoes on mythologic themes including a Judgement of Paris, Stories from the Aenid, and others, in collaboration with Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi in the Palazzo della Corgna in Castiglione del Lago.

From 1579 he returned to Rome to work with Mattheus Bril and decorated the Sala della Meridiana in the Torre dei Venti as well as in the Loggie in the Vatican. He then became one of the artists favored by the Jesuits. Assisted by Matteo da Siena, he began depicting scenes of Jesuit martyrdom. He was further commissioned such works, depicting church martyrs, with help from Antonio Tempesta for the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo. Here he finally completed over thirty graphic scenes of martyrdom, depicting every gruesome method as if it were an advertisement for a torture chamber. Visitors like Charles Dickens expressed horror at the spectacle in this church, calling it a: