Tommaso Laureti

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Tommaso Laureti Siciliano (c. 1530 – 22 September 1602) was an Italian painter from Palermo, Sicily. He studied with the late Sebastiano del Piombo and settled in Bologna after his master’s death in 1547, where he brought illusionistic ceiling painting to the city. One notable work is an Alexander the Great ceiling in Palazzo Vizzani. He also painted the Transportation of the Body of Saint Augustine for the church of San Giacomo Maggiore in Bologna.

Laureti’s Neptune Fountain in Bologna (completed 1566) is based on a 1563 drawing by him and was commissioned by Pope Pius IV; it remains one of his best-known public works. In Rome, from 1582, he worked for papal patrons in a Michelangelo-inspired style, using strong illusionistic perspective while avoiding heavy Mannerism. In Santa Susanna, Rome, his Death of Saint Susanna is the main altarpiece.

Between 1587 and 1594, his frescoes decorate the Sala dei Capitani in the Campidoglio (Palazzo dei Conservatori), depicting scenes from Ancient Rome: The Justice of Brutus; Horatius Cocles defending the Pons Sublicius; Victory at Lake Regillus; and Mucius Scaevola before Lars Porsena. In 1582 Gregory XIII commissioned him to paint The Triumph of the Christian Religion on the vaulted ceiling of the Sala di Costantino, a project completed under Sixtus V after some delays; the walls had earlier been frescoed by the school of Raphael. Baglione notes that Laureti was assisted by Antonio Scalvati, and his di sotto in su perspective for part of the ceiling was engraved for Vignola’s Prospettiva pratica in 1583.

For the Basilica of San Prospero in Reggio Emilia, Laureti painted an Assumption altarpiece, completed by Ludovico Carracci in 1602. He became the second director (principe) of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome in 1595, succeeding Federico Zuccari. A commemorative portrait of him by Orazio Borgianni, dated 1603, is kept at the Accademia di San Luca.