Private collection

Bartolomeo Passerotti was born in Bologna in 1529. Any known facts about his early education are rare. As reported by his first biographer Raffaello Borghini, in 1551 the artist was in Rome, where he remained approximately for a decade, first as a pupil of the architect Jacopo Barozzi (also called Vignola), then sharing the house with his peer the painterTaddeo Zuccari. Here Passerotti refreshed his manner with the latests news of the Roman Mannerist style, never forgetting his Emilian origin, profundly shaped by Correggio’s and Parmigianino’s examples. Back in Bologna in 1560, the artist with his large studio became the focal point of the city's artistic life and received several important commissions, especially for religious paintings and portraits of illustrious Bolognese personalities, such as Pope Gregory XIII. Nevertheless, he is now primarily remembered for his pioneering genre scenes of bucher’s shops; a series of four paintings which in 1603 joined the collection of Caravaggio’s patron Ciriaco Mattei. Breaking free from the prevailing Mannerist style with their lively observations, in parallel with Antonio Campi’s work in Cremona, they reflected the influence of northern painters Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer and prepared the way for Annibale Carracci’s genre scenes.

Shoulder to shoulder, these two bearded Greek philosophers seem almost eternal rivals. The celebrated Thracian (Aristotle), was searching for the philosophical concept of Good in the heavens and his Athenian counterpart (Democritus) who regards the viewer in three quarter profile, brings his thoughts back down to earth, in his search for a new code of Ethics. But it is not necessary to search so far away. Whoever gazes up does not really look for celestial bodies but instead that Madonna in glory with the Child on her lap who is sitting on a throne of clouds in the altarpiece (Madonna in glory with the Child and the Saints Jerome, Nicholas of Bari and Francis), once located in the church of Santa Maria del Carrobbio in Bologna, now in the nearby Collegio di Spagna.(Fig.1)
Separated some time ago in order to make two canvases and then re-joined by someone who had the necessary vision to imagine its original arrangement, the two men are now cheek to cheek, in readiness for the preparation of the final work, an example of the highest quality of character heads from the Bolognese school.

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