CESARE CORTE (Genoa, 1550 - 1613) Miracle of St. Benedict with self-portrait of the painter Monogrammed at bottom centre: CC Oil on canvas, 243X168 cm Provenance: Genoa, Church of Santa Marta Genoa, Church of San Quirico Genoa, private collection Bibliography: A. Remondini, M. Remondini, Parrocchie dell'Archidiocesi di Genova. Notizie storico-ecclesiastiche, parte II della regione XII, Genova 1891 V. Belloni, The painter Cesare Corte and the Galeotti books, La Squilla dei Francescani 3, 1988 F. Boggero, Per la pittura genovese tra Cinque e Seicento: il percorso dell'eretico Cesare Corte, "Arte Cristiana", LXXVIII, 741, 1990, pp. 417-434, fig. 20 Cesare Corte is an emblematic figure in the Genoese artistic scene of the late 16th century. The son of Valerio, who was also an artist of Venetian origin, but also a scholar, mercenary, alchemist and probable pupil of Titian Vecellio, he moved to Genoa. Cesare acquired his father's temperament, manifesting the same restlessness and ambition, with an international wandering, alternating his activity as a painter with that of military architect, working for Ferdinand of Habsburg and Ferdinand I of Tuscany. In addition to portraits (cf. Boggero 1990), Cesare's production includes several altarpieces for Genoese churches, but many of these have gone missing. Among those mentioned by Ratti are the St. Francis Stigmatised and St. Simon Stok for the church of the Carmine, and a St. Peter Called to the Waters that was kept in the church of San Pietro in Banchi. Thus, the All Saints' altarpiece from the church of San Francesco da Paola (1597) has survived to the present day, and for this reason the work presented here is extremely noteworthy and also important in documenting the author's mature activity and his breaking away from 16th-century canons. Reference bibliography: F. Boggero, in La pittura in Liguria nel Cinquecento, in La pittura in Italia, il Cinquecento, I, Milan 1988, p. 36 E. Parma, Corte, Cesare and Corte, Valerio, in La pittura in Liguria. Il Cinquecento, edited by E. Parma, Genoa 1999, pp. 388-389 F. Boggero, Cesare Corte e la Casa d'Austria, in Genova e l'Europa continentale. Opere, artisti, committenti, collezionisti, edited by P. Boccardo and C. Di Fabio, Cinisello Balsamo 2004, pp. 72-83 L. Stagno, Uno strano, & improvviso accidente: la vicenda del pittore eretico Cesare Corte, in Pensiero anticonformista e libertinismo erudito nel Seicento. Il crocevia genovese. Atti del convegno, Genova, 5-7 May 2011, edited by A. Beniscelli, L. Magnani, A. Spiriti, Manziana 2014, pp. 193-213