Marcantonio Franceschini
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Marcantonio Franceschini (1648 - 1729) was an Italian, Baroque painter, active mostly in Bologna. He was a pupil of Carlo Cignani. His paintings have an academic and idealist strain, even for a member of the Bolognese School of Painting. The sparse figures are severely arranged and often porcelain in features. He worked with a younger colleague, Donato Creti. His style is often classified as Barochetto, a mixture of baroque and rococo; but it also could be said the neoclassical influence of French artists was beginning to overtake the baroque tradition. Wittkower describes him as the "Bolognese Maratta".
Franceschini had a long carrer with patrons throughout Europe for his canvases on religious and mythological subjects. Among his extant masterpieces, are the fresco cycle in the church of Corpus Domini in Bologna (1691-96). Unfortunately, his massive program of historical and mythologic scenes in the Sala di Maggior Consiglio of the Palazzo Ducale de Genoa (1701-4) were destroyed by a fire in 1777.
He is known for cartoons upon which the mosaic decoration of the Cappella del Coro in St. Peter's Basilica is based. Knighted by pope Clement XI. He was founding a member and a subsequent director of the Accademia Clementina in Bologna. He reputedly trained Antonio Cifrondi.
[edit] Sources
- Francis P. Smyth and John P. O'Neill (Editors in Chief) (1986). National Gallery of Art, Washington DC: The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries, 450-453.
- Wittkower, Rudolf (1993). Pelican History of Art: Art and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750, 1980, Penguin Books Ltd, p471.
- Catholic Encyclopedia article
