CESARI, GIUSEPPE, called the CAVALIER d'ARPINO. – Painter, born in Arpino (Frosinone) in 1560, died in Rome in 1640. He served ten pontiffs in Rome; he was also in Naples (1589–91) for the decoration of the dome and sacristy of S. Martino, and at the court of Henry IV of France in the company of Cardinal Aldobrandini. Faithfully devoted to sixteenth-century styles in an environment in which the triumph of the Baroque was being prepared, he was already considered outdated in his own time, not only by the Caravaggisti but even by the Carracci.
His most significant work is certainly the decoration of the Hall of the Conservators on the Capitoline Hill, but numerous are his works in Roman churches, including S. Cesareo (design for the apse mosaic), S. Giovanni in Laterano (fresco of the Ascension), S. Prassede (frescoes in the vault of the third chapel in the left aisle), and then S. Maria Maggiore, S. Maria in Via, S. Luigi dei Francesi, and the basilica of S. Pietro, for which he provided the designs for the mosaics with popes and bishops in the sixteen ribs of the dome. Other works are found in churches and in private and public galleries in many Italian and foreign cities.