BIOGRAPHY OF PIETRO SANTI BARTOLI
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Pietro Santi (Santo, Sante) BARTOLI (1635-1700) is an Italian engraver, illustrator and painter, born about the year 1635 in Perugia (Ombria) and deceased in Rome on November 7, 1700. Bartoli left his hometown a s a young man to live in Rome, where he began his future artistic career, first by studying painting then by becoming a pupil of P. Lemaire and Nicolas Poussin. It w as from these men that he learned to draw the ancient monuments. He then studied the secrets of the engraving art dedicating himself almost exclusively to this art. During this period he worked as “antiquarian" in the service of the Pope and Queen Christina of Sweden.
Through this engraving art, Bartoli intended to reproduce a series of ancient Greek and Roman monuments in Rome in order to make them more known to the general public. He realized around 12 works (albums), containing nearly 900 drawings, during his artistic life. These drawings were remarkable in their accuracy and purity of design. Most of these prints were published in Rome, and were generally accompanied by a text written by the scholar Giovan-Peter Belli (1613-1696 – an Italian writer, archaeologist, conservator of antiquities of Rome, historian, art critic, and biographer).
We can hardly imagine Pietro Santi Bartoli (1635-1700) putting up scaffolding around Trajan's Column and then proceeding to climb it. Yet, it's true: in the 17th century, for months and months, the corpulent artist and climber explored the huge storiated pillar, whose forty meters of height are wrapped in two hundred meters of spiraling frieze.
Battles, wars, deployed troops, ritual sacrifices, embassies... the splendid bas reliefs of the imposing column in Trajan's Forum, Rome, tell the story of the Dacian Wars fought by the Iberian emperor between 101 and 105 AD.The painter, engraver, and etcher from Perugia painstakingly copied each scene on paper, climbing further and further up on the monumentTrajan's Column
Trajan's Column is a Roman triumphal column built in Rome, Italy, that commemorates Roman Emperor’s victory in the in the Dacian wars. It was probably constructed under the supervision of the architect Apollodorus of Damascus at the order of the Roman Senate. It is located in Trajan’s Forum, built near the Quirinal Hill north of the Roman Forum. Completed in AD113, the freestanding column is most famous for its spiral bas relief which artistically represents the. Wars between even the Romans and the Damien’s (101–102 and 105–106). Its design has inspired numerous victory columns both ancient and modern
The structure is about 30 metres (98 feet) in height, 35 metres (115 feet) including its large pedestal. The shaft is made from a series of 20 colossal Carrara marble drums, each weighing about 32 tons, with a diameter of 3.7 metres. The 190-metre frieze winds around the shaft 23 times. Inside the shaft, a spiral staircase of 185 steps provides access to a viewing platform at the top. The capital block of Trajan's Column weighs 53.3 tons, which had to be lifted to a height of c. 34 metres
To the read more about Trajan’s Column go to:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/
Related Tag: Antiquities Prints
