Federico Barocci

Federico Barocci (c. 1535–1612) was born in Urbino, where his father Ambrogio was a sculptor, and trained there with Battista Franco before working in Rome in the studio of Taddeo and Federico Zuccari. Called back to Rome by Pope Pius IV to help decorate the Vatican Belvedere, he fell ill, left the city in 1563 and never returned, working thereafter in Urbino under the patronage of Duke Francesco Maria II della Rovere. He is generally considered the most individual painter of his time in central Italy, and his swirling compositions and emotional intensity anticipate the Baroque of Rubens. He worked out every altarpiece through long series of studies; over 2,000 of his drawings survive, and his pastel studies are the earliest surviving examples of the technique. For Philip Neri's Chiesa Nuova in Rome he painted The Visitation and the Presentation of the Virgin, and his Madonna del Popolo is in the Uffizi. Here: The Nativity.