Aldobrandini

Aldobrandini. Italian family of lawyers and ecclesiastics that came to prominence with the election of Ippolito Aldobrandini (1536–1605) as Pope Clement VIII in 1592. He commissioned a great deal of art, notably for the decoration of St Peter's, but most of it was of undistinguished quality. His favourite artist was Giuseppe Cesari. Ippolito's nephew Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini (1572–1621) was a patron and collector of more discriminating and advanced taste. He is particularly remembered for commissioning Annibale Carracci in about 1604 to paint a series of six pictures—each showing a biblical scene in a landscape setting—to decorate a chapel in the family palace in Rome. These paintings stand at the head of the whole tradition of ideal landscape. They were largely executed by assistants from Annibale's designs, but the celebrated Flight into Egypt is from his own hand and is regarded as one of his greatest works. The six paintings were more or less semicircular in shape to fit into wall areas framed by arches and they are known collectively as the ‘Aldobrandini lunettes’. The chapel has been destroyed, but the paintings all survive in the Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome. Pietro's cousin Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini (originally Cinzio Passeri) (1551–1610) was an avid collector of art and antiquities. Most notably he owned a famous ancient Roman fresco now known after him as the Aldobrandini Wedding (Vatican Mus). The Aldobrandini male line became extinct in 1638 and the family palace and art collection passed through marriage to the Pamphili family.