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Azzolino, Giovanni [Giovan] Bernardino
(b Cefalù, Sicily, c. 1572; d Naples, 12 Dec 1645). Sicilian painter and sculptor. He was probably trained in Sicily, yet he is recorded in Naples from 1594, and his artistic roots are Neapolitan. The painting of the Presentation in the Temple (1599; Naples, S Maria la Nova) is his earliest datable work. It demonstrates that Azzolino was already aware of trends in late 16th-century Neapolitan painting and that he knew the art of Belisario Corenzio, Fabrizio Santafede and Luigi Rodriguez ( fl 1594–1606). He took his lead at first from Corenzio and was, like him, an expert fresco painter. In 1599 Azzolino was commissioned to execute the decoration (untraced) for the church of the Spirito Santo, Naples. In the canvases and frescoes that he painted between 1606 and 1610 for the church of Gesù e Maria, Naples, and in the earlier Pentecost for the church of S Francesco at Caiazzo (in situ; his only signed work) it is possible to discern the influences of both Corenzio and Santafede. An awareness of the new clarity and naturalism of the Florentine reformers Lodovico Cigoli, Agostino Ciampelli and Domenico Passignano had spread in Naples through Santafede, whose role in the development of Azzolino’s style was fundamental. Both artists subsequently remained faithful to the devotional art of the Counter-Reformation, although they later demonstrated an awareness of the innovative work of Caravaggio. Azzolino countered both the excessive intellectual subtleties of Mannerism and the experimental naturalism of Caravaggio with serene and familiar renderings of sacred stories such as the Circumcision (1607; Naples, Capodimonte); these works, like the art of the Florentine reformers, retain a classical sense of design.
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