GRANDI, FRANCESCO. - Painter, b. in Rome on 21 Apr. 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 that Rome had during the 19th century.
In the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls he painted in the nave two large frescoes with St. Paul Preaching to the People and St. Paul Driven from the Temple; he painted two others in the transept of St. John Lateran with Pope Sylvester Receiving the Donation of Constantine and Vespignani Presenting to Pope Leo XIII the Plans for the restoration of the Basilica. Other paintings of his are in S. Maria in Aquiro. In 1869 he brought to completion Fracassini's frescoes in St. Lawrence Outside the Walls, 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 St. Eusebius and numerous pictures for churches, not only in Rome, wrapping himself in traditional figurative schemes interpreted according to the modes of the most modern but reasonable naturalism.
G. was also a painter of secular subjects, as in certain rooms of the theater of Fano, for which he also painted the curtain, as well as a designer of tapestries and a portraitist (portraits of Pius IX and Leo XIII).