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- Giovanni Lanfranco
- Also known as
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Giovanni Lanfranco
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primary name: Lanfranco, Giovanni
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; printmaker; Roman; Italian; Male
- Life dates
- 1582-1647
- Biography
- Painter. Together with Sisto Badalocchio (q.v.), he was a pupil in Parma of Agostino Carracci (1557-1602). Again with Badalocchio, he travelled to Rome in 1602, following Agostino 's death, to work under Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), where the two assisted him with, among other projects, the completion of the decoration of the Galleria Farnese. At the beginning of the second decade of the century, following Annibale's death, Lanfranco spent periods in Emilia, where he was influenced by both Ludovico Carracci (1555-1619) and Bartolomeo Schedoni (1578-1615) and where he renewed his acquaintance with the frescoes of Correggio (c. 1489-1534). (For some additional details concerning Lanfranco's early career, see the biographical entry for Badalocchio.)
After Lanfranco's return to Rome in 1612, he was for long the close rival of Domenichino (q.v.) for some of the most prestigious commissions of the day. Lanfranco's reputation was secured by his 'proto-Baroque', illusionistic fresco in the style of Correggio in the dome of S.Andrea della Valle, painted in 1625-7.
In 1634 Lanfranco transferred to Naples, where he painted fresco decorations in the Gesù Nuovo (1634-5); the Certosa di S. Martino (1637-8/9; see 1967,0211.2); SS Apostoli (1638-46; see 1895,0915.728); and the Cappella del Tesoro in the cathedral of S. Gennaro. He returned to Rome in 1646, where his last major commission was his fresco decoration of the 'Glory of St Carlo Borromeo' in the apse of S. Carlo ai Catinari, which he left unfinished at his death.
- Bibliography
- Bartsch XVIII pp.344-51 (31 nos, all from first period in Rome)
Turner 1999
