Pietro da Cortona
(b Cortona, ?1 Nov 1596; bapt 27 Nov 1597; d Rome,
16 May 1669).
Italian painter, draughtsman and architect. He was, together with
Gianlorenzo Bernini and Franceso Borromini, one of the three leading
artists of the Roman Baroque. As a painter he developed the early
Baroque style, initiated by Annibale Carracci, to a magnificent and
imposing High Baroque. His fresco decorations set a standard for
European Baroque painting until they were eclipsed by Giambattista
Tiepolo’s works and those of other Venetian masters of the 18th century.
As an architect Cortona was far less influential. His imaginative
designs for façades and stucco decorations were, however, conclusive and
independent solutions to problems central to Roman Baroque architecture.