GIOVANNI da SAN GIOVANNI. — Painter, born in S. Giovanni in Valdarno on 20 March 1592, died in Florence on 6 December 1636.
A pupil of Matteo Rosselli, he succeeded in asserting, above all in his decorative fresco works, an original vision of reality through an abundance of vivid episodes, fresh patches of colour, and spatial and atmospheric intuitions that anticipate certain nineteenth-century achievements. His most highly regarded works are the crowded and lively decoration of the semi-dome of the apse in the church of SS. Quattro Coronati, in Rome, and the allegories, in honour of Lorenzo il Magnifico, that adorn the Sala degli argenti in the Palazzo Pitti, in Florence.
BIBL.: F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno..., IV, Florence 1846, pp. 191–278; O. H. Giglioli, G. da S. G., there 1920; G. Delogu, G. da S. G., in L'arte, 18 (1925), pp. 111–127; S. Lazzaro, Affreschi inediti di G. da S. G., in Arti figurative, 3 (1947), pp. 20–28. Alberto Neppi