BALESTRA, ANTONIO. - Painter and engraver, b. in Verona in 1666, d. there in 1740. He completed his early training in Venice, under Antonio Bellucci; from 1690 to 1694 he was in Rome, where he studied the works of Raphael and the Carracci, and where he attended the school of Maratta. After a further stay in Verona and Venice, he went to Modena and Parma to study Correggio; then he returned definitively to Verona.
The vast output of B. reflects the eclectic taste derived from his superficial assimilation of the style of the works and the artists with whom he came into contact. Nevertheless the salient characteristic of his painting, namely a broad decorative facility, had a notable influence on the eighteenth-century painting of Verona, where B. worked very actively.
BALESTRA, ANTONIO - The Nativity - Venice, church of S. Zaccaria.(phot. Alinari)
His principal works are: in Venice, Madonna and Saints (church of the Gesuiti), Adoration of the Shepherds (church of S. Zaccaria), Rest on the Flight into Egypt (at the convent of the nuns of the Madonna del Carmine), St. John the Baptist in the Desert (church of S. Niccolò), Martyrdom of St. John the Evangelist (church of S. Stae). In Verona, after his Parmesan period, he painted the St. Thomas of Villanova for the chapter of the Augustinians at S. Eufemia. His paintings are also in the churches of Vicenza, Brescia, and Bergamo.
Bibliography2 worksFor the biography of B., see a letter of the painter, in L. Frati, Lettere autobiografiche di pittori al p. Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi, in R
BIBL.: For the biography of B., see a letter of the painter, in L. Frati, Lettere autobiografiche di pittori al p. Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi, in Riv. d'Arte, 5 (1907), pp. 66-68, and the Guide and the Vite cited by L. Ozzola, s. v. in Thieme-Becker, II, p. 408; U. Ojetti, L. Dami, N. Tarchiani, La pittura italiana del '600 e del '700 etc., Milan 1924 (see index).
Gerlini, Elsa. “Balestra, antonio.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II, coll. 746–747. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1949. https://azioneromana.com/article/balestra-antonio.
MLA
Gerlini, Elsa. “Balestra, antonio.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. II, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1949, coll. 746–747. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/balestra-antonio.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec2_balestra_antonio,
author = {Gerlini, Elsa},
title = {Balestra, antonio},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {II},
pages = {746--747},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1949},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/balestra-antonio}
}
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