ALBANI, FRANCESCO

ALBANI, FRANCESCO. - Painter, b. in Bologna on 17 March 1578, d. there on 4 Oct. 1660. Together with Reni, he first studied under Calvaert and then at the Accademia dei Carracci, whose collaborator he became. He worked in Rome from about 1600 to 1616, when he returned to Bologna. A. is particularly famous for idyllic, mythological subjects (Danza degli Amori in the Brera Gallery), treated with facile elegance and preciousness. Among his sacred paintings, pleasing for their freshness and serenity, may be mentioned the Battesimo di Cristo in the Pinacoteca di Bologna, the SS. Giovanni e Rocco in the Collegiata di Persiceto, and the Gesù Bambino cui viene annunciata la Passione in the church of Galliera. In Rome he painted in S. Maria della Pace, S. Giacomo degli Spagnoli, and the gallery of Palazzo Verospi. He also devoted himself to questions of artistic theory and around 1635 began a treatise in collaboration with O. Zamboni; Malvasia reported on it, publishing some extracts, and shared A.’s theoretical position.