Cigoli

thumb|Cigoli, self-portrait thumb|300px|The Sacrifice of Isaac, by Ludovico Cigoli, c. 1607 Lodovico or Ludovico Cardi (21 September 1559 – 8 June 1613), also known as Cigoli, was an Italian painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last nine years of his life in Rome.

==Biography== Lodovico Cardi was born at Villa Castelvecchio in Cigoli, Tuscany, whence the name by which he is commonly known. Initially, Cigoli trained in Florence under the fervid mannerist Alessandro Allori, and studied the works of Michelangelo, Correggio, Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo. Later, influenced by the most prominent of the "Counter-Maniera" painters, Santi di Tito, as well as by Barocci, Cigoli shed the shackles of mannerism and infused his later paintings with an expressionism often lacking from 16th-century Florentine painting.