Alessandro Allori

Alessandro di Cristofano di Lorenzo del Bronzino Allori (Florence, 31 May 153522 September 1607) was an Italian painter of the late Mannerist Florentine school.

Biography After the death of his father in 1541, Allori was brought up and trained in art by the mannerist painter Agnolo Bronzino, a close friend of the family. Both Alessandro and his son Cristofano sometimes used the name "Bronzino" in adulthood. Allori supplemented his training with a study trip to Rome between 1554 and 1560, and with anatomical research which included the dissection of human corpses, provided by the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.

In the prime of his career, Allori headed one of the "two most important workshops in Florence in the second half of the 16th century" (the other was led by Santi di Tito). He served as First Consul of the Accademia del Disegno in 1573, and was made head of the Arazzeria Medicea, Florence's state-owned tapestry workshop, in 1581. Between 1578 and 1582 he worked in the Medici Villa di Poggio a Caiano, expanding a fresco of Tribute to Caesar which Andrea del Sarto had painted in the 1520s. Allori modified his style and copied figures to harmonize with the work of del Sarto, who was revered by the artists of Florence. In the same way, Allori expanded Franciabigio's fresco Triumph of Cicero in the same hall with figures copied from his frescoes in the Chiostro dello Scalzo, Florence.

S. J. Freedberg derides Allori as derivative, claiming he illustrates "the ideal of Maniera by which art (and style) are generated out of pre-existing art." The cold and polished appearance of his painted figures makes them resemble statues as much as living beings. The art historian Simona Lecchini Giovannoni is more positive, remarking that Allori gives life to these "grandiose, introverted figures" by surrounding them with realistic depictions of plants and flowers, household furniture, and textiles; the paintings "approach the spectator, not with dialogue and sentiment, but through the tangible evidence of objects and details". He was the father of the painter Cristofano Allori (1577–1621).

In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Vasari says that the relationships between Jacopo Pontormo and his pupil Bronzino, and between Bronzino and Allori, resembled those between fathers and sons; he consequently describes the three as a kind of artistic dynasty, despite the lack of literal family ties. Portrait of Piero de Médici, (São Paulo Art Museum, São Paulo) Susanna and the Elders (202 × 117 cm, Musée Magnin, Dijon) Allegory of Human Life

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