GRANDI, FRANCESCO. - Painter, b. in Roma on 21 April 1831, d. there in 1891. A pupil of Lodovico Venuti and of the Accademia di S. Luca, he was among the most active painters of sacred subjects in Roma during the 19th century.
In the basilica of S. Paolo fuori le mura he painted in the main nave two large frescoes, with S. Paolo speaking to the people and S. Paolo driven from the Temple; he painted two others in the transept of S. Giovanni in Laterano, with Pope Silvestro receiving the Donation of Costantino and Vespignani presenting Pope Leone XIII with the plans for
the restoration of the Basilica. Other paintings by him are in S. Maria in Aquiro. In 1869 he completed Fracassini’s frescoes in S. Lorenzo fuori le mura, unfortunately almost entirely lost during the Second World War. He also painted, in the dome of the cathedral of Vercelli, scenes from the life of s. Eusebio and numerous paintings for churches, not only in Roma, adhering to traditional figurative schemes interpreted according to the manner of a more modern but reasonable naturalism.
G. was also a painter of secular subjects, as in some rooms of the theatre of Fano, for which he also painted the curtain, as well as a designer of tapestries and a portrait painter (portraits of Pio IX and Leone XIII).