Marc' Antonio Franceschini

Italian painter; b. at Bologna, 1648; d. there c. 1729; best known for the decorative works he carried out in Parma, Bologna, and Genoa, and for the designs executed for Clement XI for certain mosaics in St. Peter's. He may be regarded as a member of the Eclectic School and a follower of the Carracci, and his chief works consist of the Ranuzzi ceiling in Bologna, two fine pictures in the Bologna Gallery (Annunciation and the Holy Family) and one in the Servite convent depicting the founders of the order. Other less important churches in the same city are adorned with his works and there are five of his paintings at Vienna. He also decorated a church at Crema in 1716, and a few years later painted a fine picture of St. Thomas of Villanova giving alms to the poor, to be seen in the Augustinian church at Rimini. He is believed to have lived to a great age. Historians have stated that he visited Madrid, but the more general opinion is that he declined an invitation to that city, saying that he did not wish to leave his native country. He painted down to the very moment of his death, and on one of his pictures at Venice he declares that he was seventy-eight when he finished it, and on another in Genoa, representing Rebecca, that he was eighty. His drawing was very precise, colouring fresh and vivid, and his shadows were not so intense as those of his predecessors.

GEORGE CHARLES WILLIAMSON