RIPANDA, Jacopo
(active 1500-1516)

Biography

Italian painter and engraver, born in Bologna. He went to Rome during the pontificate of Alexander VI to study classical antiquities. He constructed there an apparatus to see and make detailed drawings of the reliefs on Trajan's Column. As a consequence he received commission to decorate four rooms of the Palazzo dei Conservatori with scenes from classical history. Completed under the pontificate of Julius II, the frescoes of the Sala di Annibale and the Sala della Lupa are still partly in situ.

In 1505-07 Ripanda painted the chiaroscuro frescoes (destroyed) of scenes from the lives of Julius Caesar and Trajan for the palace of Cardinal Fazio Santorio (1447-1510), now the Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj. According to a document of 1513, Ripanda executed some decorations for the funeral of Julius II. His last documented work is a sketchbook (1516; Lille, Musée des Beaux-Arts).

Ripanda's style is basically Emilian, influenced by Ercole Grandi and Lorenzo Costa the Elder, but adapted to the style of painters such as Bernardo Pinturicchio and Girolamo Genga. The result closely resembles the work of Amico Aspertini and the young Baldassare Peruzzi. Contemporary sources indicate that the attraction of Ripanda's work lay in his meticulous description of classical details. Though a mediocre painter, in his turn he influenced such artists as Peruzzi, as is evidenced by the latter's rediscovered chiaroscuro frescoes of the Life of Trajan in the episcopal palace, Ostia.