Viviano Codazzi

Viviano Codazzi (1606 or 1611–1672) was an Italian painter of landscapes or vedute during the Baroque period, active mainly in Rome and Naples.

Biography

Born in Bergamo, he is also known as Viviano Codagora or il Codagora but by 1620 he had reached Naples, where he probably continued training with Cosimo Fanzago. In Naples, he also worked with Domenico Gargiulo in completing large fanciful landscapes; with Codazzi painting the architecture, and Gargiulo, the figures. This type of collaboration would be common for Codazzi, and after relocating to Rome after the Masaniello revolt, he also collaborated with Antoine Gobau, Michelangelo Cerquozzi, Jan Miel, Filippo Lauri, and Vicente Giner.

Piazza San Pietro as it was in 1630, painted by Viviano Codazzi.

He painted in a style influenced by a circle of Dutch painters active in Rome, known as Bamboccianti, including Pieter van Laer. He is best known as one of the earliest practitioners in Italy of painting architectural veduta of Rome and Roman ruins, both fanciful (capriccio) or realistic (veduta realistica). His son Niccolò Codazzi (1642–1693) was also a painter of vedute. Viviano was a strong influence on Canaletto and Bernardo Bellotto. His depiction of St. Peters Basilica in 1630 shows one of the last depictions of the facade without Bernini's colonnade.

References

• Gallery of Art entry
• Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi and the Baroque Architectural Fantasy, Review author[s]: Thomas Willette. The Burlington Magazine (1994). p. 560-561.
• Farquhar, Maria (1855). Ralph Nicholson Wornum (ed.). Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters. Woodfall & Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London; Digitized by Googlebooks from Oxford University copy on Jun 27, 2006. p. 47.