Tommaso Laureti

Who was Tommaso Laureti?

Tommaso Laureti, often called Tommaso Laureti Siciliano, was an Italian painter from Sicily who trained in the atelier of the aged Sebastiano del Piombo and worked in Bologna. From 1582, he worked for papal patrons in Rome in a Michelangelo-inspired style with special skill in illusionistic perspective that in his Roman work avoided all but traces of Mannerism.

Laureti was born in Palermo. After his master's death in 1547, he settled in Bologna, introducing illusionistic perspective paintings on ceilings to the city, notably an Alexander the Great ceiling with a painted architectural setting in Palazzo Vizzani. He painted a Transportation of the body of Saint Augustine for San Giacomo Maggiore. The Mannerist structural elements of the marble and bronze Fountain of Neptune in Bologna, which is surmounted by Giambologna's Neptune, completed in 1566, were based on a 1563 drawing by Laureti. This commission from Pope Pius IV is undoubtedly Laureti's most familiar public work.

In the Church of Santa Susanna, Rome, Laureti's painting of the Death of Saint Susanna is above the High Altar. His frescoes in the Sala dei Capitani in Michelangelo's Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Campidoglio, painted in 1587-94, depicted episodes from Roman history: The Justice of Brutus; Horatius Cocles defending the Pons Sublicius; Victory at Lake Regillus; Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsena.