(b Bologna, bapt 19 April 1555; d Bologna, 13 or 14 Nov 1619). Painter, draughtsman and etcher. His father, Vincenzo Carracci, was a butcher, whose profession may be alluded to in Ludovico’s nickname ‘il Bue’ (It.: ‘the Ox’), though this might also be a reference to the artist’s own slowness. Ludovico’s style was less classical than that of his younger cousins Agostino and Annibale, perhaps because of a mystical turn of mind that gave his figures a sense of other-worldliness. Like his cousins, he espoused the direct study of nature, especially through figure drawing, and was inspired by the paintings of Correggio and the Venetians. However, there survives in his work, more than in that of his cousins, a residue of the Mannerist style that had dominated Bolognese painting for most of the mid-16th century. Ludovico maintained a balance between this Mannerist matrix, his innate religious piety and the naturalism of the work of his cousins. With the exception of some travels during his training and a brief visit to Rome in 1602, Ludovico’s career was spent almost entirely in Bologna. In the first two decades of the 17th century he lost touch with the activities of his more up-to-date Bolognese compatriots—contemporaries and pupils alike—who were then active in Rome, including his cousin Annibale. Ludovico’s later work became overblown and eccentric. This curious ‘gigantism’ was first evidenced in paintings of the late 1590s, but the tendency seems to have been reinforced by the monumental classicism of Annibale’s ceiling of the Galleria Farnese in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, which Ludovico saw on his visit in 1602. In spite of his isolation in Bologna, Ludovico strongly influenced the subsequent development of painting in his native city and elsewhere, especially through his pupils, who included Guido Reni, Giacomo Cavedone, Francesco Albani, Domenichino and Alessandro Algardi.

Part of the Carracci family

• Carracci, Ludovico
  • Academy, §2: The first official academies
  • Carracci
  • Italy, §III, 4(iv): High Renaissance & Mannerist painting, c 1500–c 1600: Other schools & artists
  • Italy, §III, 5(i): Baroque & Rococo painting, c 1600–c 1750: Bologna & Emilia Romagna
  • Italy, §XVI, 2: Art education: Academies
  • Milan, §II, 3: Art life and organization, 1500–1714
  • Rome, §III, 4(ii): Art life and organization, 1550–1600
  • assistants
    • Brizio, Francesco
    • Cavedone, Giacomo
  • attributions
    • Garbieri, Lorenzo
    • Vanni: (1) Francesco Vanni
  • collaboration
    • Carracci, §II: (2) Agostino Carracci
    • Cesi, Bartolomeo
    • Scarsellino
  • patrons and collectors
    • Carracci, §I, 2: Collaboration
    • Egerton: (1) Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater
    • Este (i): (13) Cesare d’Este
    • Franzone
    • Hume, Abraham
    • Lesdiguièresde: (2) Charles de Blanchefort, Maréchal de Créquy and Duc de Lesdiguières
    • Ruffo: (2) Tommaso Ruffo
    • Sampieri
    • Trichet de Fresne, Raphaël
  • pupils
    • Albani, Francesco, §1(i): Bologna, to 1600
    • Algardi, Alessandro, §1(i)(b): Subject sculpture: 1625 to mid-1630s
    • Carracci, §II: (3) Annibale Carracci, §I, 1(i): Paintings: Bologna, 1560–95
    • Mastelletta
    • Reni, Guido, §I, 1: Bologna, 1575–1601
    • Savonanzi, Emilio
  • reproductive prints by others
    • Calvi, Jacopo Alessandro
  • restorations by others
    • Succi
  • works
    • Carracci, §II: (1) Ludovico Carracci, §1(i): Training and early work, before c 1590
    • Carracci, §II: (1) Ludovico Carracci, §1(ii): Middle years, c 1590–1601
    • Carracci, §II: (1) Ludovico Carracci, §2: Working methods and technique
    • Drawing, §IV, 4: 17th century
    • Frame, §II, 5: Italian Baroque
    • Rosary
    • Tasso, Torquato