Marcantonio Franceschini
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Marcantonio Franceschini (1648 - 1729) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mostly in Bologna.
[edit] Biography
He was a pupil of Carlo Cignani, with whom he worked on the frescoes in the Palazzo del Giardino in Parma (1678-1681). He worked closely for many years with his brother-in-law, Luigi Quaini, who also was the cousin of Cignani.
Franceschini had a long career painting canvases on religious and mythological subjects for patrons throughout Europe. Franceschini decorated the ceilings of Palazzo Ranuzzi[1](1680) and Palazzo Marescotti Brazzetti (1682) in Bologna. He helped paint in the tribune at San Bartolomeo Porta Ravegnana (1690). Franceschini frescoed the ceiling of the Sala d'Onore ("Hall of Honor") in the Ducal palace of Modena. He painted the altarpiece in the Cathedral of Finale Ligure and the canvas of San Carlo in the church of the same name in Modena.
Unfortunately, his massive program of historical and mythological scenes in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio of the Palazzo Ducale of Genoa (1701-1704) were destroyed by a fire in 1777. These had been completed with the help of Aldrovandini, Quaini, and Antonio Meloni. In addition, his decorations of the pendentives and lunettes of the Cathedral of Piacenza were removed in the late 19th century. He decorated the church of Corpus Domini (1688-1694) in Bologna (damaged in World War II)
He painted 26 canvases of the seductions and loves of the goddesses Diana and Venus for the Prince Johann Adam of Liechtenstein in Vienna (1692-1700). He also served as a buyer of art for the Prince.
In Genoa, he also painted for the palaces Spinola and the Palazzo Pallavicini (now Podestà) (1715) of Genoa. The latter had five large canvases of the history of Diana.
Canvases of the four seasons (1716) are now found in the Pinacoteca di Bologna. There are two canvases of the Story of Rachel in the Pinacoteca B.P.E.R..
He painted the "cartoons" used to make the mosaic decoration of the Cappella del Coro in St. Peter's Basilica. Knighted by Pope Clement XI, he was founding a member and a subsequent director of the Clementine Academy in Bologna.
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".
Numerous painters worked and trained in his prolific studio. Among those who spent time as pupils, apprentices, or assistants were Tomasso Aldrovandini, Luca Antonio Bistoia, Giacomo Boni, Francesco Caccianiga, Ferdinando del Cairo, Antonio Cifrondi, Giacinto Garofalini, Ercole Graziani the elder, Girolamo Gatti, Pietro Gilardi, Giuseppe Marchesi (il Sansone), Michelangelo Monticelli, Giuseppe Pedretti, Pietro Francesco Prina, Antonio Rossi (painter), Gentile Zanardi, his son Jacopo, and Giacomo Boni[2].
[edit] References
- Francis P. Smyth and John P. O'Neill (Editors in Chief) (1986). The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries, pp. 450-453.
- Wittkower, Rudolf (1993). Art and Architecture Italy, 1600-1750. Penguin Books, p. 471.
- Luigi, Lanzi (1847). in Thomas Roscoe: The History of Painting in Italy; from period of the revival of the arts to the eighteenth century. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden; Digitized by Googlebooks from Oxford University copy on Jun 31, 2007, page 158-160.
- Franceschini and the Palazzo Podestà, Genoa, Dwight C. Miller. The Burlington Magazine (1957) 99 (652): 230-235.
- ^ Palazzo Ranuzzi is now that of Giustizia.
- ^ Hobbes, James R. (1849). Picture collector's manual adapted to the professional man, and the amateur. T&W Boone, 29 Bond Street; Digitized by Googlebooks, page 92.
