Baldassare Franceschini

Baldassare Franceschini, called Il Volterrano after his birthplace Volterra and, to distinguish him from Ricciarelli, Il Volterrano Giuniore (16116 January 1689) was an Italian late Baroque painter and draughtsman active principally around Florence and Volterra. He was mainly known for his frescoes, altarpieces and easel paintings for churches and palaces in Florence, Volterra and Rome. His subject matter was diverse and included portraits, biblical and mythological scenes, history paintings and allegorical compositions.

Life He was born in Volterra as the son of the sculptor Gaspare. At an early age, he worked as an assistant to his father and subsequently apprenticed with the Florentine artist Cosimo Daddi in Volterra. During the time of his apprenticeship his talents were discovered by the local notable Ludovico Guarnacci and the Marquese Curzio Inghirami, brother of the more powerful Julio, secretary of Christina of Lorraine. The Marquese Inghirami placed him, at the age of sixteen, under the Florentine painter Matteo Rosselli. Both Francesco Furini and Lorenzo Lippi also trained with Rosselli. Within a year, he had advanced sufficiently to execute frescoes in Volterra with skilled foreshortening, followed by work for the Medici family in the Villa Petraia. In 1652, the Marchese Filippo Niccolini, planning to employ Franceschini on the frescoes for the cupola and back-wall of his chapel in Santa Croce, Florence, dispatched him to various parts of Italy to improve his style. The painter, in a tour that lasted some months, took a serious interest in the schools of Parma and Bologna, and, to some extent, in the Romano-Tuscan style of Pietro da Cortona, whose acquaintance he made in Rome. He then undertook the paintings commissioned by Niccolini. Among his best oil paintings on a large scale is the St. John the Evangelist in the church of Santa Chiara, Volterra. One of his latest works is the fresco in the cupola of the Annunziata, Florence, which occupied him for two years towards 1683.