Matteo Zaccolini was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 painter, priest and author of the late Mannerist

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

 and early Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

 periods. He was a mathematical theorist on perspective.

Works

Born in Cesena, he was a pupil of the local painter Francesco Masini, and became a Theatine priest. He is also called "Zacolini" and "Zocolino". He was a protegé of Cardinal Vincenzo Giustiniani

Vincenzo Giustiniani

thumb|upright|Vincenzo Giustiniani in a portrait by [[Nicolas Régnier]] Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani was an aristocratic Italian banker, art collector and intellectual of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, known today largely for the Giustiniani art collection, assembled at Palazzo...

, who was renowned for his patronage of painters, including Caravaggio

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

, Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...

 and Domenichino. Zoccolino was born in Cesena

Cesena

Cesena is a city and comune in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, south of Ravenna and west of Rimini, on the Savio River, co-chief of the Province of Forlì-Cesena. It is at the foot of the Apennines, and about 15 km from the Adriatic Sea.-History:Cesena was originally an Umbrian...

,

He collaborated with Baldassare Croce

Baldassare Croce

Baldassare Croce was an Italian painter, active during the late-Mannerist period, active mainly in and around Rome.Known as a prolific academic painter in Rome; he was named director of the Academy of St. Luke...

 with the quadratura frescoes in the church of Santa Susanna

Santa Susanna

The Church of Saint Susanna at the baths of Diocletian is a Roman Catholic parish church on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, with a titulus associated to its site that dates back to about 280...

, where he painted the trompe l'oeil

Trompe l'oeil

Trompe-l'œil, which can also be spelled without the hyphen in English as trompe l'oeil, is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions.-History in painting:Although the phrase has its origin in...

 columns. In collaboration with Giuseppe Agellio, he painted in San Silvestro al Quirinale

San Silvestro al Quirinale

San Silvestro al Quirinale is a historic church in central Rome, Italy.-History:The first mentions of a church on the site are from 1039, when it was called Santo Stefano in Cavallo in recognition of its site on Monte Cavallo, a small hill in the Campo Marzio.In 1507, the church was granted to the...

. He joined the Theatine order in 1603. From then on, he worked solely in Theatine projects, in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

.

He is best known for a four volume treatise, written 1618–1622, on the theory of painting with titles: De Colori, Prospettiva del Colore, Prospettiva lineale, and Della Descrittione dell'Ombre prodotte da corpi opachi rettilinei. These works, while not in general circulation, gained him renown among eclectic circles in Rome. A historian, Giuseppe Silos, from the Theatines

Theatines

The Theatines or the Congregation of Clerks Regular of the Divine Providence are a male religious order of the Catholic Church, with the post-nominal initials "C.R."-Foundation:...

, in 1666 described Zaccolini as “Geniuses of our order and most admirable men of his age”. Bellori described him as a master of perspective and optics, and as having instructed Domenichino, Gagliardi, Circignani

Niccolò Circignani

Niccolò Circignani was an Italian painter of the late-Renaissance or Mannerist period.Born in Pomarance, he is one of three Italian painters called Pomarancio. His first works are documented from the 1560s, where he painted frescos on the Old Testament stories for the Vatican Belvedere, where he...

, and Cavaliere d’Arpino

Giuseppe Cesari

Giuseppe Cesari was an Italian Mannerist painter, also named Il Giuseppino and called Cavaliere d'Arpino, because he was created Cavaliere di Cristo by his patron Pope Clement VIII. He was much patronized in Rome by both Sixtus V.-Biography:Cesari's father had been a native of Arpino, but...

 among others. Of note, it appears the earliest version of the manuscript was written in mirror-script, as well as content influenced by writings of Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

.