CI'GOLI, LUDOVICO CARDI DA, Cavaliere, a very celebrated Florentine painter, was born at Cigoli in 1559. He was one of the great reformers of style of the Florentine school, and one of those masters whose works formed an epoch in the history of painting in Tuscany. Cigoli was the first who successfully opposed the anatomical school of the imitators of Michel Angelo, and be was seconded in his efforts by his friend Gregorio Pagani.
Cigoli was the scholar of Santo di Titi, but his style was founded upon the works of Barroccio and Correggio, and had much in commpn with the eclectic school of the Carucci. His drawing was generally correct, and in colouring and chiaroscuro he was superior to Barroccio, but inferior to Correggio, especially in local tones. His chief pro ductions are large altar-pieces, some of which are among the finest pictures in Italy. The ' Lame Man healed by St. Peter,' in St. Peter's at Rome, painted for Clement VII., is a very celebrated work, though now destroyed, and was pronounced by Andrea Sacchi the third picture in Rome: the first being the 'Transfiguration' by Raffaelle, and the second the Communion of St. Jerome' by Domenichino, now hanging opposite to each other in the same room in the Vatican.
There is also at Florence a 'Martyrdom of St. Stephen,' at the Nuns of Monte Domini, which Pietro da Cortona pronounced to be one of the finest pictures in Florence. The 'Lame Man Healed' has been engraved by Dorigny, Callot, and Scacciati. As a fresco-painter, Cigoli was not successful. He was also an architect ; and he wrote a prac tical treatise on perspective, 'Prospettiva pratica di Ludovico Cigoli Car. o I'ittore,' with diagrams engraved in copper by his brother Bastiano Cardi. He invented a perspective-machine, for drawing objects iu perspective from nature without the assistance of rules. Cigoli died at Rome in 1613, shortly after the completion of some frescoes painted for Paul V., in that pope's chapel in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Cigoli was himself dissatisfied with his works, and wished to repaint them, but the pope would not permit him. He was a Cavalicre of the Tuscan order of San Stefano, and a Knight of Malta.
(Baldinucci, Notizie del Profasori del Disegno, ; Lanzi, Scoria Pittorica, .to.)