Szczęśliwe nieba krajów włoskich! Freskant Michelangelo Palloni w Wielkim Księstwie Litewskim

ENThe art of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the second half of the 17th century, specifically after 1660 and the destructive five-year Muscovite occupation, was produced in a largely destroyed country. Lithuania was ruined both economically and demographically, having little agricultural production or manufacturing, and having municipal governments and monasteries that were devastated. During this period Lithuania lost the material achievements of the Jagiellonian and Vasa eras and a reshuffling of the key power elite took place. Previously overlooked noble families now entered the political scene, bringing with them enormous ambition and the need for self-creation. These families required suitable residences as well as churches to serve as mausoleums. Along with other prominent families such as the Radziwiłł and the Sapieha families, there appeared the Pac family and their allies the Brzostowski and the Kotowicz families, and soon afterwards - as a counterbalance to them - the Pociej, the Połubiński and the Słuszka families. What had not changed were the locations for the centres for arts and crafts: it was still the capital Vilnius, Kaunas - an important starostwo and a stronghold of the Pac family faction - and Grodno, which in 1673 was the second city in the Polish Commonwealth to hold Sejm sessions (after Warsaw) therefore becoming the second political capital of the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. The Pac family played a major role in the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania during the last quarter of the 17th century. Apart from local artists or those from the Lesser Poland region, like Jan Zaor (died in 1672), the Pac family commissions were realized in the main by the Italian artists [...] to decorate his most important foundation - the Camaldolese church and monastery in Pažaislis near Kaunas.After Pac’s death in 1684, the artist was employed at the royal court - in large part due to the recognition gained for his works in Pažaislis, and his friendship with Martino Altomonte, a court artist of king John III Sobieski. Palloni did not cut his ties with the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania. Thanks to the support of his son-in-law Giovanni Pietro Perti, who worked in Vilnius for Michal Kazimierz Pac and later for Kazimierz Jan Sapieha, Pac’s successor as Grand Hetman of Lithuania and the Voivode of Vilnius, Palloni became one of Sapieha’s artists. When in 1677 the 34-year-old Michelangelo Palloni set off for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, he in all probability did not imagine that this distant Commonwealth would be the place where he would spend the rest of his long life and successful career. The exclusive and close-knit artistic society in Florence did not guarantee a career for Palloni that he deserved, but it did hone his talents. Skills acquired at the workshops of Baldassare Franceschini known as il Volterrano and Ciro Ferri and those developed thanks to his relationship with Cosimo Ulivelli, Accademia 144 delle Arti Disegno and through the production of works commissioned by Medici, dazzled the Lithuanian and then Polish patrons of Palloni. His adopted homeland gave Palloni the opportunity to fulfil his artistic ambitions and gain financial success, something which he could only dream of achieving in his native Tuscany. [From the publication]