SACCHI, Andrea ( Nettuno or Fermo or Rome 1599/ 1600-Rome1661),
Italian. Famed as a link in the great chain that starts with Ludovico^* and
Annibale Carracci,^* Andrea Sacchi studied with Albani^* and in turn taught
Carlo Maratta.^* A forceful exponent of the classical Roman baroque style,
Andrea Sacchi was a gifted painter of easel and altar pictures but was less
well suited for the large decorative fresco programs that patrons demanded
of him. As a result, history views him as a brilliant failure whose
deliberation and careful methods resulted in some of the most marvelous
oils of that period, but whose later career was marred by crippling self-doubt
that increasingly hampered his ability to carry out more ambitious large-scale
projects. Despite the artificial division between "classicism" and "baroque,"
Sacchi's open debates with Pietro da Cortona^* after 1637 have fueled
scholars' tendency to group Sacchi with the Carracci, Albani, Reni,^* and
Poussin,^* the opposing camp being represented by Bernini, the early
Guercino,^* and Pietro da Cortona.

The son of Nicola Pellegrini from Fermo, Sacchi took the name of his
first teacher, Benedetto Sacchi, who reportedly adopted him. His further
training is variously described. Sources concur that he studied with
Francesco Albani in Rome and Bologna around 1617/18; Bellori states that
Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte took up the young artist. Not
surprisingly, much of his early work was supported by the Cardinal.

Of these, Sacchi Vision of St. Isidore the Farmer (dated 1621/2, Rome,
S. Isidoro) and The Madonna of Loreto with St. Bartholomew, St. Joseph, StJames of Compostela and St. Francis

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