Fra'Galgario and the Bergamask Aristocracy
Fra'Galgario's immediate success when he returned to his birthplace is explained by an unsatisfied desire amongst the local aristocracy. The austere style developed by local portrait painters could not fulfil their yearning for ostentatious representation. These gentlemen and their wives, members of a more refined and worldly society than that of the 17th Century, inevitably gave an enthusiastic welcome to the brilliant and spectacular painter. Moreover, their attachment to solid, country values also coincided with Fra'Galgario's Lombard training and his faithfulness to a certain naturalism. Our painter was the first to succeed in combining these two styles.
The great local families embarked on what, for some, would be a long and fruitful dialogue with a painter who knew how to represent them as they wanted to be, and often also as they really were. Although we cannot speak of a school of Fra'Galgario, painters such as his contemporary Cifrondi, who was first and foremost a portrait painter, and the younger Bonomino were also commissioned to paint these same families.
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