Matteo Pérez de Alesio (1547–1628)

• Was an Italian painter of devotional, historical and maritime subjects during the Mannerist period.
• He was also known as Matteo da Lecce by virtue of his hometown of Lecce.
• Matteo Pérez was the son of Antonio de Alessio and Madama Lucente.

• He was born in Lecce in the Apulia region. 

• He studied under Michelangelo, working on the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican, painting the Fall of the Angels in the facade facing Michelangelo's Last Judgment.

• He was a member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome.

• He also worked in Malta (from 1576), Seville (in the 1580s) and Lima (from 1588), where he died.

• Pérez de Alesio came to Lima, Peru, accompanied by his disciple and helper Pedro Pablo Morón whom he had contracted as an apprentice in 1583.

• Morón was to serve him as a helper with a salary of 200 ducados for the 10 years that the contract would last.

• Matteo Pérez de Alesio spent the majority of his entire artistic career in Peru, where he lived more than 40 years, between 1588 and 1628.

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