Niccolò Circignani (also Niccolò Pomarancio), Italian painter. He may have been a pupil of Daniele da Volterra and later of Santi di Tito. In 1564 he was in Rome working on frescoes of Old Testament narratives in the SalaGLOSSARYHall, large room. Grande of the Vatican Belvedere. Next, in Perugia, he formed a partnership with Hendrick van den Broeck and in 1565 replaced him in the painting of frescoes (destroyed) for Orvieto CathedralGLOSSARYThe principal church of a province or diocese, where the throne of the bishop is placed. For reasons lost to time and tradition, a cathedral always faces west - toward the setting sun. The altar is placed at the east end. The main body, or nave, of the cathedral is usually divided into one main and two side aisles. These lead up to the north and south transepts, or arms of the cross, the shape in which a cathedral is usually formed.. His paintings of this period - including the frescoes (1568) in the church of the Maestà delle Volte, Perugia, the Resurrection (1569; Mongiovino, SanctuaryGLOSSARYthe part of a church or temple containing the shrine; in Christian churches the choir and high altar.) and the AnnunciationGLOSSARYthe term for the event described in the Gospel according to St. Luke, when the Angel Gabriel brings the Virgin Mary the news that she is to bear her son, Jesus Christ. The Annunciation was among the most widespread pictorial subjects of European art during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (1577; Città di CastelloGLOSSARY"castle", palace., Pinacoteca Comunale) - are strongly influenced by late Florentine and Roman MannerismGLOSSARYA movement in Italian art from about 1520 to 1600. Developing out of the Renaissance, Mannerism rejected Renaissance balance and harmony in favor of emotional intensity and ambiguity. In Mannerist painting, this was expressed mainly through severe distortions of perspective and scale; complex and crowded compositions; strong, sometimes harsh or discordant colors; and elongated figures in exaggerated poses. In architecture, there was a playful exaggeration of Renaissance forms (largely in scale and proportion) and the greater use of bizarre decoration. Mannerism gave way to the Baroque. Leading Mannerists include Pontormo, Bronzino, Parmigianino, El Greco and Tintoretto..
From 1579 he was again in Rome, working in the Vatican, where, with Matthijs Bril, he decorated the Sala della Meridiana in the Torre dei Venti (finished before the end of 1580) and supervised works on the third floor of the Logge (1580-83). In 1581-82 he executed huge frescoGLOSSARYWall painting technique in which pigments are applied to wet (fresh) plaster (intonaco). The pigments bind with the drying plaster to form a very durable image. Only a small area can be painted in a day, and these areas, drying to a slightly different tint, can in time be seen. Small amounts of retouching and detail work could be carried out on the dry plaster, a technique known as a secco fresco. cycles in Sant'Apollinare and San Stefano Rotondo, Rome, following the didactic style recommended in the post-Tridentine treatise of Gabriele Paleotti. In scenes of great emotional impact Pomarancio depicted the tortures of Christian martyrs with insistent emphasis on the cruel details. His next works - frescoes in the chapelGLOSSARYa small separate place for worship, either part of a large church or a separate building. of S Francesco Borgia at Il Gesu (1584-87), the Angelic Concert with the Eternal Father in SS Giovanni e Paolo and the Celestial GloryGLOSSARY(1) The supernatural radiance surrounding a holy person. (2) To have the distinction of one's deeds recognized in life and to be revered for them posthumously: this was glory. The nature of true gloria was much discussed, whether it must be connected with the public good, whether the actions that led to it must conform with Christian ethics, how it differed from notoriety. The concept did not exclude religious figures (the title of the church of the Frari in Venice was S. Maria Gloriosa), but it was overwhelmingly seen in terms of secular success and subsequent recognition, as determining the lifestyles of the potent and the form of their commemoration in literature, in portraits and on tombs. As such, it has been taken as a denial of medieval religiosity ('sic transit gloria mundi'), and thus a hallmark of Renaissance individual ism; as a formidable influence on cultural patronage; and as spurring on men of action, as well as writers and artists, to surpass their rivals - including their counterparts in antiquity. in S Pudenziana, all in Rome - show a stylistic evolution from late Roman Mannerism towards a more unified and monumental type of composition. His last work, the Ascension (Cascia, S Francesco), is dated 1596.
