SIGNORELLI, LUCA (c. 1450-1523), Italian painter, of the Umbro Tuscan School, was born in Cortona—his full name being Luca d'Egidio di Ventura. Luca was apprenticed to Piero della Francesca at Arezzo where he lived in the house of his uncle Lazzaro Vasari. His first recorded work was the decoration of an organ at Landi near Cortona. In 1472 Luca worked at Arezzo and in 1474 at Citta di Castello on paintings no longer extant. In 1475 he probably was in Florence; from 1479-1481 his presence in Cortona is proved by documents. During this time probably Pope Sixtus IV. commissioned Signorelli to paint the frescoes, now mostly very dim, in the shrine of Loreto. In 1482-83 he worked in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In the fresco "The Last Will of Moses" he was helped by assistants ; he painted also two apostles and three portrait figures into Perugino's fresco "The handing over of the keys to St. Peter." Luca may have stayed in Rome till 1484. After a visit to Gubbio and Perugia he returned to his native Cortona, which remained from this time his ordinary home. From 1497 he began some professional excursions. At Monteoli veto near Siena he painted frescoes of the life of St. Benedict (1497) and in S. Agostino, Siena, an altarpiece (1498). The next year he went to Orvieto, and here he produced the works which, beyond all others, stamp his greatness in art. These are the fres coes in the chapel of S. Brizio, in the cathedral, which already con tained some pictures on the vaulting by Fra Angelico. The works of Signorelli represent the "Last Days of the Mundane Dispensa tion," with the "Pomp and the Fall of Antichrist," and the "Eter nal Destiny of Man," and occupy three vast lunettes, each of them a single picture. In one of them, Antichrist, after his portents and impious glories, falls headlong from the sky, crashing down into an innumerable crowd of men and women. "Paradise," the "Elect and the Condemned," "Hell," the "Resurrection of the Dead," and the "Destruction of the Reprobate" follow in other compart ments. To Angelico's ceiling Signorelli added a section showing figures blowing trumpets, etc. ; and in another ceiling he depicted the Madonna, Doctors of the Church, Patriarchs and Martyrs. There is also a great deal of subsidiary work connected with Dante, and with the poets and legends of antiquity. The daring and terrible invention of the great compositions, with their pow erful treatment of the nude and of the most arduous foreshorten ings, and the general mastery over complex grouping and distribu tion, marked a development of art which had never previously been attained. In 1502 he returned to Cortona, and painted a dead
Christ, with the Marys and other figures now in the cathedral.
In 1506 he was in Siena to submit his design of "The Judgment of Solomon" for the pavement of the cathedral. In 1507 he exe cuted a great altarpiece for S. Medardo at Arcevia in Umbria— the "Madonna and Child," with the "Massacre of the Innocents" and other episodes. In 1508 Pope Julius II. determined to re adorn the camere of the Vatican, and he summoned to Rome Signorelli, in company with Perugino, Pinturicchio and Bazzi (Sodoma). They began operations, but were shortly all super seded to make way for Raphael, and their work was taken down. Luca afterwards lived for the most part in Cortona. The works of his later years though signed with his name were mostly the work of his pupils. In 1521 Luca painted the panel of "The Holy Trinity, Virgin, Infant and Saints" in the Uffizi, Florence; and in 1523 he had completed the "Virgin, Infant, Angels and Saints" at Foiano. His last work, left unfinished, was a fresco of the "Baptism of Christ" in the chapel of Cardinal Passerini's palace near Cortona. Signorelli entered the magistracy of Cortona as early as 1488. In the year 1523 he died there.
Signorelli surpassed all his contemporaries in showing the struc ture and mechanism of the nude in immediate action. His drawings in the Louvre demonstrate this. He aimed at powerful truth rather than nobility of form ; colour was comparatively neglected, and his chiaroscuro exhibits sharp oppositions of lights and shadows. He had a vast influence over the painters of his own and of succeeding times, but had no pupils or assistants of high mark. Among his chief works not mentioned above may be named : "The Flagellation" in the Brera, Milan (an early work) ; "School of Pan"; two groups of Saints (from S. Agostino, Siena) ; and the portrait of a lawyer—all four in the Berlin Museum. In the Uffizi Florence are : "The Madonna with Child and Shepherds" and "The Holy Family." The National Gallery, London, has a "Circumcision" and other works.
See R. Vischer, Signorelli and die italienische Renaissance (1879) ; M. Crutwell, Luca Signorelli (1899) ; Girolamo Mancini, Vita di Luca Signorelli (Florence 1903) ; Leutpold Dussler, Luca Signorelli (Berlin and Leipzig, 1926) ; Sir D. E. Colnagni, Dictionary of Florentine Painters (1928).