School of Carlo Maratti

**The School of Carlo Maratti** encompasses the influential workshop and artistic tradition led by the Italian Baroque master Carlo Maratti (1625–1713), whose studio in Rome became the most prominent training ground for painters in the late seventeenth century. Maratti himself was born on May 18, 1625, in Camerano in the Papal States and moved early to Rome, where he studied under Andrea Sacchi, entering his workshop in 1637 and remaining until Sacchi’s death in 1661.

Maratti rose to become the leading painter of the Roman school in the later seventeenth century and one of the last great masters of Baroque classicism. His clear, balanced compositions emphasized papal clemency and Christian virtues while incorporating the rhetorical splendor of the Baroque. He earned the nickname “Carluccio delle Madonne” for his many popular depictions of the Virgin. Key works include his first public commission, the *Nativity* (1650), *The Mystery of the Trinity Revealed to St. Augustine* (c. 1655), *The Appearance of the Virgin to St. Philip Neri* (c. 1675), and the frescoes for Pope Clement X in the Palazzo Altieri (1670s).

The School of Carlo Maratti refers to the thriving studio practice that trained three generations of artists, including Nicola Berrettoni, Giovanni Battista Passeri, Pietro de’ Pietri, Andrea Procaccini, Giuseppe Chiari, and Agostino Masucci. Even foreign artists sought instruction there. Following the deaths of Andrea Sacchi (1661), Pietro da Cortona (1669), and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1680), Maratti was regarded as the “caposcuola della pittura romana,” the leading painter in Rome.

Maratti’s classicizing yet magnificent style shaped Roman art well into the eighteenth century, promoting the study of classical antiquity through his leadership of the Accademia di San Luca. His legacy endures in the numerous altarpieces still in Roman churches, his international reputation for portraiture and religious subjects, and the continued attribution of works to his school, reflecting the enduring appeal of his balanced, devotional vision.