Una sconosciuta copia seicentesca del Martirio di San Pietro da Verona di Tiziano nella collezione Inghirami di Volterra

This paper aims to attribute an unpublished seventeen-century pictorial copy of Tiziano's Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr, kept in the private collection of the Inghirami family in Volterra, to the Flemish-born painter Livio Mehus. The canvas shows stylistic traits strictly comparable to the artistic language of the aforementioned painter, whose employment as a copyist from Venetian masters for the Medici dinasty is well documented by coeval inventories and biographies. Moreover, Mehus artistic manner was appreciated by the Pratese branch of the same Inghirami family, who in 1683 commissioned to the painter a monumental altarpiece for their chapel in Prato Cathedral. I consider to identify the Volterra painting with the copy of Tiziano’s Assassination of Saint Peter Martyr painted by Mehus for Mattias de’ Medici and reported in 1659 and 1669 inventories of his Villa of Lappeggi. Finally, I suggest that the painting could have been moved from Lappeggi to Volterra during the second or third decade of nineteenth-century, when the villa was bought by a close acquaintance of the Inghirami family, captain Gioacchino Cambiagi.