VECCHIA, Pietro della

Italian painter. Until 1984 he was mentioned as Pietro Muttoni, called della Vecchia. However, this description was founded on a misunderstanding created by Lanzi, who in his Storia pittorica della Italia confused the name of the artist with the name of a collection, Muttoni, in which he had seen one of his paintings. In fact, Pietro was from the well-known Venetian family, the della Vecchia. His earliest known works, two representations of St Francis, which have survived in many versions (e.g. Modena, Galleria Estense; Rovigo, Accademia Concordi), and a CrucifixionGLOSSARYAn important method of capital punishment, particularly among the Persians, Seleucids, Jews, Carthaginians, and Romans from about the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD. Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished it in the Roman Empire in AD 337, out of veneration for Jesus Christ, the most famous victim of crucifixion. There were various methods of performing the execution. Usually, the condemned man, after being whipped, or "scourged," dragged the crossbeam of his cross to the place of punishment, where the upright shaft was already fixed in the ground. Stripped of his clothing either then or earlier at his scourging, he was bound fast with outstretched arms to the crossbeam or nailed firmly to it through the wrists. The crossbeam was then raised high against the upright shaft and made fast to it about 9 to 12 feet (approximately 3 metres) from the ground. Next, the feet were tightly bound or nailed to the upright shaft. A ledge inserted about halfway up the upright shaft gave some support to the body; evidence for a similar ledge for the feet is rare and late. Over the criminal's head was placed a notice stating his name and his crime. Death, apparently caused by exhaustion or by heart failure, could be hastened by shattering the legs (crurifragium) with an iron club, so that shock and asphyxiation soon ended his life. (1633; Venice, S Lio) are so heavily influenced by Carlo Saraceni and his student and collaborator Jean Leclerc as to suggest that della Vecchia trained with them. Certain Caravaggesque elements, which remained in his work for some time to come, suggest that he spent some time in Rome after Leclerc had left Venice, in 1621 or 1622. The influence of Alessandro Varotari or Padovanino, who is described by sources as della Vecchia's teacher, is only noticeable in dated works from 1635 onwards.

Della Vecchia probably worked in Padovanino's studio c. 1625-26, after his trip to Rome, and from the latter he derived his great interest in 16th-century painting in Venice and the Veneto. His monumental Crucifixion (1637; Venice, Fondazione Cini), in which the composition harks back to the 16th century while the figures derive from Caravaggio, is characteristic of this phase. Around 1640 the influence of Bernardo Strozzi is apparent in his work, as in the Angel Offering a Skull to St Giustina, Who Stands between St Joseph and St John (1640; Venice, Accademia), painted for the church of S Giustina. Also in 1640 he began to design cartoons for the mosaics in S Marco, on which he worked until 1673.