Pier Francesco Battistelli

Pier Francesco Battistelli (17th century) was an Italian painter active in the early-Baroque period, mainly in his hometown of Bologna, as well as Parma. He painted quadratura.

Biography He was born in Pieve di Cento (Bologna) in the second half of the 16th century. Between 1605 and 1607, he is documented as an "Accademico Incamminato" (an academic of the Carracci school) and was a pupil of Girolamo Curti (known as "il Dentone"). He was a painter of architecture and adornment, "very well founded in quadrature and perspective" as Malvasia underlines, and he even taught perspective lessons at the Carracci academy.

The first documented work refers to the fresco Battistelli executed in the dome of the sanctuary of the Madonna della Celletta, near Argenta, in 1613.

From 10 May 1618 he was in the service of Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, who involved him in the decoration of the Ducal Palace of Parma. He contributed to the design of the façade of the Palazzo della Pilotta and collaborated on the Teatro Farnese.

In his final years, he worked on the decoration of the Sala dei Giganti at Palazzo Bentivoglio in Gualtieri.