FURINI, FRANCESCO. - Painter and poet, born in Firenze about 1600 and died in the same city on 15 Aug. 1646. He was a pupil of Passignano and Matteo Rosselli and a friend of Giovanni da S. Giovanni, with whom he collaborated on the fresco of the Night in the Casino Bentivoglio in Roma. A long stay in Venezia gave his painting softness of sfumato and elegance of line.
In the first period of his activity he dealt mainly with mythological and secular subjects, such as the Nessus and Deianira in the Galleria Corsini in Firenze and the Wrath and the nymphs in the Galleria Pitti, a true masterpiece, in which Guercinesque influences are evident in the dark blue tonality of the sky. From 1633 until his death, having become parish priest of S. Ansano del Mugello, he treated religious and allegorical themes in which, however, he could not conceal a certain coldness of feeling, as in the Madonna of the Rosary in the church of S. Maria del Pozzo at Empoli (1634) and in the frescoes of a room in Palazzo Pitti with Stories from the life of S. Lorenzo (1636-37). Many of his drawings are preserved in the Uffizi. Various sonnets remain from his activity as a poet.
Firenze 1773, pp. 1-22; A. Stanghellini, F. F. pittore, Siena 1914; U. Ojetti, L. Dami, N. Tarchiani, La pittura italiana del '600 e '700 alla mostra di Palazzo Pizzi, Milano-Roma 1924, pp. 29-64; M. Marangoni, s. V. in Euc. Ital., XVI (1932), p. 204.
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