Giovanni Francesco Romanelli

Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1610 [Baldinucci claims the date is May 14, 1617.] -1662) was an Italian painter of the Baroque.

Born in Viterbo to Laura de Angelis and Bartolommeo Romanelli. At age 14, he was sent to live in Rome and make his fortune as an artist, and within a few years was housed in the palace of Francesco Barberini, and became one of the main pupils of the studio of Pietro da Cortona. When the Barberini (with Urban VIII's death) fell out of favor during the Innocent X (Pamphili) papacy, Romanelli's patronage ebbed. He was then called by Cardinal Mazarin to work in Paris, for whom he frescoed a cycle of painting based on Ovid's "Metamorphoses". He also painted the Salle des Saisons and the Queen's Cabinet of the Louvre for Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV. Among Romanelli’s pupils we know of his son Urbano Romanelli and of Giovanni Moneri.

Romanelli painted a "Deposition from the Cross" in Sant’Ambrogio della Massima, a "Presentation in the temple" which was transferred to a mosaic altarpiece for the Basilica of St. Peter’s. In France he was made a knight of the Order of St. Michael by King Louis XIV. He also painted a "Gathering of Manna" now in Louvre.

References

*cite book | first= Maria|last= Farquhar| year=1855| title= Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters| editor = Ralph Nicholson Wornum | pages= page 147-148 | publisher= Woodfall & Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London; Digitized by Googlebooks from Oxford University copy on Jun 27, 2006| id= | url= http://books.google.com/books?q=intitle:Wornum+intitle:principal+intitle:painters | authorlink=
* [http://www.artnet.com/library/07/0728/T072833.asp| Artnet biography]