Andrea Pozzo: Art, Culture and Mathematics

Andrea Pozzo was born in Trento to a Milanese father, Jacopo,and his wife Lucia on 30 November 1642. He attended the Jesuit School in Trento until he was 17, but because his results that were less than brilliant, his father apprenticed him to a painter, given that booklearning went against his nature, and hepreferred drawing and doodling to studying. From an early age he worked, and learned the art of painting in painters’ workshops in Trento and Venice. It is thought that Andrea became practiced in this art and in the use of perspective forms through painting scenes for the theatre, every aspect of which was evolving in that particular period. In 1665 he chose the religious life, entering the Society of Jesus; although he never completed the entire cursus of Jesuit studies, hewould remain in the order as a temporal coadjutator. What little is known about his life comes from the catalogi breves and the catalogi triennales, reports sent by the Jesuit fathers in the provinces fathers to the Father General at the beginning/end of each year in the case of the former, every three years in the case of the latter. All of the evaluations between 1670 and 1705 concur in expressing great appreciation of his artistic talents. Over the years, his fame and his talent would both grow, but he remained simple and unaffected in his modest positionasa Brother in the Society of Jesus. Andrea Pozzo died in Vienna on 31 August 1709. He is considered, along with Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Pieter Paul Rubens, to be one of the three great artists whoe xpressed the art of the Society of Jesus.