Pacheco writes the biographies of three famous artists, the Italian Florentine painter Rómulo Cincinnato who worked in Spain for King Phillip the II; the famed Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, and his own pupil and apprentice the most famous Spanish artist of the seventeenth century, Diego Velazquez.
The biographies are couched within the last of three volumes, the earlier dealing largely with art theory and iconography. His iconographic standards for art are of interest to cultural historians due to Pacheco’s role as a censor for the Spanish Inquisition.
Pacheco is one the closest biographers to his subject, with Velazquez being both his pupil and the husband of his daughter. The biographer also had strong contacts with the Spanish court and is an excellent source for conveying the world of patronage that the three artists moved in.
He was also close friends with the prominent humanists of Spain and yet his writing style has been described as laboured, his more theoretical ideas as disorganised.
He was also close friends with the prominent humanists of Spain and yet his writing style has been described as laboured, his more theoretical ideas as disorganised.
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