ABSTRACT
Giulio Cesare’s transition from sculpture to painting marks a decisive moment in the history of the Procaccini family. While for the sixteenth century the Procaccini’s success was predicated on the combination of Camillo’s pictorial skills and entrepreneurial perspicacity, the start of the seventeenth century saw Giulio Cesare’s rise as the most innovative painter in Milan, a circumstance that shifted the internal equilibrium of the workshop and provided further business opportunities. At the start of the seventeenth century, while Giulio Cesare was establishing his new identity as a painter, Camillo was still the most requested artist in Milan. While the new geographic focus adopted by Camillo penalised small peripheral commissions, which from 1600 onwards were progressively assigned to the bottega and greatly diminished in number, large decorative campaigns in Milan remained Procaccini’s priority. The decorative campaign orchestrated by the Procaccini in Sant’Angelo ended with the decoration of the cloisters, which is mentioned by Borsieri in 1619.
