LANDFRANCO, GIOVANNI. – Painter, born in Parma on 26 January 1582, died in Rome on 30 November 1647. He was a pupil of Agostino Carracci but later came under the influence of the latter’s brother Annibale, with whom he worked in his youth in Rome. After a brief stay in Bologna, which earned him numerous commissions in the religious sphere, including for the churches of Parma and Piacenza, Landfranco returned to Rome around 1612, where he worked intensively until 1631. Among his works from this period are the altarpiece for the high altar of S. Giuseppe a Capo le Case, the frescoes in the Bongiovanni chapel in S. Agostino (1616), the friezes in the Sala Paolina at the Quirinal, the decoration of the dome of S. Andrea della Valle, the scenes of the Passion in the Sacchetti chapel at S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and the frescoes in the chapel of the Crucifix in St Peter’s Basilica.
Around 1633 he moved to Naples, where he left a notable mark with his frescoes in the Certosa of S. Martino and in the church of the same name, as well as those in the dome of the Treasury of S. Gennaro in the Cathedral, already begun by Domenichino. Returning to Rome in 1646, he completed his final decoration with the Glory of Paradise in the apse of S. Carlo ai Catinari (1647). Landfranco deserves the title of the leading Baroque exponent of the Carracci school, for more than any other Emilian painter he knew how to adapt Correggio’s manner to the climate of 17th-century Rome, exploiting space—especially in fresco works—for striking and theatrical effects of colour and chiaroscuro, not without a certain superficial dynamism of perspective, rarely inspired by genuine lyrical impulses. Despite his predominantly technical approach to figurative art, the Parmesan master occasionally displayed, in his easel works, the ability to assimilate Correggio’s spirit with free eloquence, as seen in the lower part of the canvas The Paradise (Pinacoteca di Parma) and in the Musicians Angels in the church of the Cappuccini in Rome, fragments of a burned altarpiece. – See pl. LIV.