Borgianni, Orazio

BORGIANNI, ORAZIO. - Painter, b. in Rome in 1578. He learned the rudiments of drawing from his brother, a sculptor known as Guido Scalzo. He spent many years in Spain; then he returned to Rome around 1605 and died there in 1616. A follower of Caravaggio, he nonetheless knew how to preserve his own originality, breaking the static quality of Merisi's luminism, as can clearly be seen in the David with the Head of Goliath in the Borghese Gallery, and giving considerable importance to color in his works.

In addition to the aforementioned David, we recall the following works by him in Rome: the Holy Family, in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica; St. Charles Borromeo, in S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane; St. Charles among the Plague-Stricken, formerly in S. Adriano; the self-portrait, in the Accademia di S. Luca; the portrait of the painter Tommaso Laureti, in the same collection; a Pietà, in the Galleria Spada. At Savona, the Birth of the Virgin is preserved in the sanctuary of the Misericordia. He was also an engraver, and 52 prints depicting subjects from Raphael's Logge, marked with his monogram and dated 1615, are known as his work, along with a few other sheets and a St. Christopher.