Bartolomeo Coriolano

Bartolomeo Coriolano made 18 chiaroscuro prints after Guido Reni’s designs, but his work was not always appreciated by that temperamental artist. Contemporary biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia reported that Reni ordered an engraving of his chiaroscuro painting Fall of the Giants from a French engraver “whose work satisfied Guido more than did the wood engravings made on three plates with much effort by Coriolano, who claimed to have corrected and improved many things in his prints and always irritated Guido with them” (Catherine and Robert Enggass, trans. and intro., The Life of Guido Reni. University Park and London: 1980, p. 104). Perhaps Reni also objected to Coriolano’s pride, revealed in this print by the inclusion of Coriolano’s coat of arms (a cross above three wings), as well as “Eques” (“Knight”), a reference to his title of “Cavaliere di Loreto,” given him by Pope Urban VIII.