Alessandro Tiarini

Alessandro Tiarini was a pupil of the Mannerist painters Prospero Fontana and Bartolomeo Cesi. After Fontana’s death in 1597, Tiarini travelled to Florence in 1599 to complete his training with Il Passignano. While there, he decorated the Convent of San Marco with stories from the life of St. Mark. Returning to Bologna in 1606, he drew close to the naturalism of the Carracci brothers, successfully blending it with a Tuscan Late Mannerist style. Thanks to the backing of Ludovico Carracci, he won a commission for a large altarpiece depicting The Martyrdom of St. Barbara for the Basilica of San Petronio. This first public commission was followed by others for various places
of worship in the city, such as the frescoes for the Convent of San Michele in Bosco (1614) and a large altarpiece depicting St. Dominic Reviving a Child for the church of San Domenico in Bologna (1614–18). In his mature years, Tiarini drew close to the innovations being formulated by Guido Reni and Guercino in the embryonic Bolognese school of painting and showed an interest in revisiting the colourism of the Venetian school and of Correggio, gradually adopting a lighter palette and imbuing his compositions with greater naturalism. From 1621 he was involved in a grand decorative scheme consisting of frescoes in the Basilica of the Madonna della Ghiara in
Reggio Emilia, a commission that tied him down in the city until 1629. While there, he also
produced a number of religious works such as The Virgin Beseeching the Most Holy Trinity for the
Oratorio della Trinità, though it was later moved to the church of San Pietro. On his return to
Bologna, he retired from painting and left his workshop to a painter named Giovanni Andrea Sirani.