Background
Daniele da Volterra was born in 1509 in Volterra, Toscana, Italy.
Daniele da Volterra was born in 1509 in Volterra, Toscana, Italy.
As a boy, Daniele initially studied with the Sienese artists Il Sodoma and Baldassare Peruzzi, but he was badly received and left them.
Daniele is considered to have accompanied Baldassare Peruzzi to Rome in 1535, and supported him to paint the frescoes in the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne. After that he became an apprentice to Perin del Vaga.
From 1538 to 1541 he helped Perin with the painting of frescoes in the villa of Cardinal Trivuzio at Salone, in the Massimi chapel in Trinità dei Monti, and the chapel of the crucifixion in San Marcello al Corso. He was later commissioned the painting of a frieze in the main salon of the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, with the life of Fabius Maximus.
In Rome he started working with Michelangelo and became his close friend. Michelangelo used his influence with Pope Paul III to secure Daniele commissions and the post of superintendent of the works of the Vatican, a position he held until the Pope's death. Michelangelo also provided him with sketches on which Daniele based some of his paintings, especially his series of frescoes in the Orsini chapel in the Trinity College, the commission for which Daniele had received in December 1541.
Later Daniele was commissioned by Paul III to complete the decoration of the Sala Regia. On the death of the pope in 1549 he lost his position as superintendent and the pension to which it entitled him. He then devoted himself chiefly to sculpture. He died in Rome in 1566. According to Daniele's will, the marble knee of the missing left leg of the Christ from Michelangelo's "Deposition" was in his possession at the time of his death.
Daniel is best remembered for his association, for better or worse, with the late Michelangelo. He was also noted for his finely drawn, highly idealized figures done in the style of Michelangelo. Daniele's best-known painting is the "Descent from the Cross" in the Trinità dei Monti. Other notable works include the "Massacre of the Innocents", created in 1557 in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, a portrait he drew of Michelangelo and a bust he made from Michelangelo's death mask. His best-known sculpture is the "Cleopatra in the Belvedere."
Assumption of the Virgin (della Rovere chapel, Trinita' dei Monti)
Moses on Mount Sinai
The Presentation of the Virgin
Descent from the Cross (The Deposition)
The Prophet Elias
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Sybil
Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti
Massacre of the Innocents
Madonna with Child, young Saint John the Baptist and Saint Barbara
Daniele's work is distinguished by beauty of colouring, clearness, excellent composition, vigorous truth, and curiously strange oppositions of light and shade. Where he approaches closely to Michelangelo, he is an artist of great importance; where he partakes of the sweetness of Sodoma, he becomes full of mannerisms, and possesses a certain exaggerated prettiness.
