Agostino Carracci was an Italian painter (Bologna 1557-Parma 1602). He soon began his training at the schools of P. Fontana and B. Passerotti. He made use of the teachings of D. Tibaldi and the Flemish C. Cort for engraving techniques. After a stay in Venice (1582), where he engraved works by Veronese (the Venetian artist who will have more ancestry in the development of Carraccesque art), Agostino defined the characters of his painting in opposition to mannerism: the frescoes of the palace bear witness to this. Fava in Bologna with the Stories of Jason (1583-84) which reveal a strong component of Venetian painting. This is the first work carried out in common with his brother Annibale and his cousin Ludovico. In the early eighties of the century. XVI thanks to the Carraccis, the Accademia dei Desiderosi flourished in Bologna, proposing the knowledge of the great masters of the Renaissance, meditated in the light of a renewed awareness of nature and tradition. During this period Agostino worked in Parma, where in 1586 he engraved works by Correggio and executed the Madonna and Child with Saints (Parma, Galleria Nazionale), which reveals a fusion of elements from the Parma and Venetian cultures. The results of a new contact with Venetian painting (1588-89, years in which the artist engraved the Crucifixion del Tintoretto) are highlighted in the all-Titian system of the figure of Pluto (1592; Modena, Galleria Estense) and in theAnnunciation (Paris, Louvre). I am there from these years Communion of St. Jerome and theAssumption (Bologna, Pinacoteca).
