SIMONE CANTARINI. — Painter and engraver, born in Oropezza (Pesaro) in 1612, died in Verona on 16 Oct. 1648; pupil of Claudio Ridolfi, he also studied the works of the Venetians and of Federico Barocci.
Attracted by the art of Guido Reni, he joined his school; he then went to Rome, where he was influenced by the works of Raphael. Returning to Bologna, he had a very well-known and frequented studio; he was called to Mantua by that duke, for whom he painted a portrait. As the latter was not satisfied, C. left Mantua and took refuge in Verona, where he died.
An eclectic and academic painter, C. is to be considered a disciple of Reni, to whose art he remained bound despite a certain momentary disagreement between the two; Malvasia found him “the most graceful colorist and the most correct draftsman of his century,” but his value is confined within the narrow limits of an easy and broad disseminator of the Bolognese pictorial current of his time.
He was a notable engraver and for his compositions he made wide use, too, of the models offered by the works of Veronese, the Carracci, and Reni himself.
Many of his works are in Bologna, the Marches, and in Italian and foreign galleries. Among them are: *The Transfiguration*, in S. Urbano in Bologna; *St. Anthony*, in Cagli (Pesaro); *The Assumption*, in the Pinacoteca of Bologna; a *Sacred Family*, in the Borghese Gallery in Rome; *Joseph and the Wife of Potiphar*, in the Gallery in Dresden; etc.