Gregorio dei Ferrari
Italian, 1644 - 1726
Painter. He came to Genoa to study law but devoted his time and energy to painting. He studied with Domenico Fiasella from c. 1664–9, and in this period he may have painted scenes in the style of Giovanni Andrea de’ Ferrari, Fiasella and Giovanni Battista Casone. He assisted Fiasella on the altarpiece St Clare Repulsing the Saracens (1667; Montoggio, parish church). Probably after the death of Fiasella in 1669, Gregorio went to Parma, perhaps accompanied by Giovanni Battista Merano and Andrea Sighizzi (d 1684), from whom he may have acquired his skill in quadratura design. In Parma he abandoned the monumentality of Fiasella’s art, and began to develop a softer, more lyrical manner. He made an oil copy (Genoa, Mus. Accad. Ligustica B.A.) of Correggio’s frescoes in the dome of Parma Cathedral. Two paintings, the Rest on the Flight into Egypt and the Virgin with St Jerome and the Magdalene (both untraced), apparently copies after Correggio, are mentioned by Ratti (see Soprani) as the property of Anton Raphael Mengs. During his years in Parma, Gregorio may have exchanged ideas with Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Merano and Giovanni Andrea Carlone. The paintings executed after his return (c. 1671) to Genoa suggest the influence of these artists and are distinguished by the graceful elongations and vertical spiral movement of the figures, which resemble those sculpted by Filippo Parodi and Bernardo Schiaffino. They became more undulating and more tightly modelled by the end of the century. Two canvases inspired by Correggio, St Francis Comforted by an Angel and Rest on the Flight into Egypt (both Genoa, S Siro), are dated to c. 1674–5. Domenico Piola is said to have admired Gregorio’s work so much that in 1674 he gave his daughter to Gregorio for a wife. The marriage encouraged a harmonious working relationship, which contributed to the prestige of the Casa Piola workshop, founded in the 1660s (see Piola). In S Siro, Genoa, Piola painted a vault, the Glory of St Gaetano (1674), and in 1676 he received payment for the adjoining vault, the Glory of St Andrew Avellino, frescoed by Gregorio in 1676–7.
In 1681 Gregorio painted St Clare Repulsing the Saracens (Imperia-Oneglia, parish church), a dramatic work, with flickering light and twisting draperies. Around 1686–7 he also worked in Turin, where he painted two ovals in the Palazzo Reale, Jupiter Crowning Mars and Jupiter and Fame, and two oval decorations in the Palazzo del Pozzo della Cisterna.
In the 1680s, with Sighizzi as quadraturista, Gregorio frescoed several ceilings in the Palazzo Balbi Senarega, Genoa. The brilliant and delicate sketch (Oberlin Coll., OH, Allen Mem. A. Mus.) that he made for the allegorical figures and architectural decoration in a room provides further evidence of his prowess in composing intricate quadratura designs. In 1682 he was commissioned to paint two canvases (St Lawrence and St Stephen) in SS Annunziata. During the French bombardment of the city, Piola and Gregorio worked in the Villa Gropallo, where Gregorio frescoed an Allegory of Time with a frieze of the Four Seasons in the large drawing-room. Gregorio next frescoed two vaults in the Palazzo Rosso (Spring and Summer; competed 1688) to accompany two rooms frescoed by Piola. By 1689 Gregorio had also frescoed the Brignole Sale drawing-room with the Myth of Phaëthon and painted a small cupola fresco in the chapel (both destr.). In these frescoes Piola and Gregorio worked within a similar ornamental structure, but Piola usually delineated each figure clearly, whereas Gregorio delighted in arranging twisting, elongated figures to soar through space in a swirl of arms, legs and draperies, as in the Allegory of Summer . The two artists worked together again at the Palazzo Granello, Genoa, where Gregorio frescoed two rooms with Cupid and Psyche and Neptune and Amphitrite in a style close to that of the frescoes in the Palazzo Rosso. Around 1690 he also frescoed the large vault in SS Giacomo e Filippo, Genoa, with an Assumption of the Virgin (destr.; known through photographs), and designed the surrounding quadratura, which was frescoed by Francesco Costa (1672–1740). This vision of the Virgin, soaring diagonally towards God the Father and viewed from below by serpentine figures on balconies, inspired the commander of the French fleet, Jacques Bailli de Noailles, to ask Gregorio to work in Marseille.
Accompanied by his son Lorenzo, Gregorio worked for two years in Marseille (1692-4), painting decorative frescoes and canvases. A payment in 1694 from the Durazzo family for a design for a silver chandelier indicates that he had by then returned to Genoa. That year he also received a commission to fresco the vault of S Paolo in Campetto (destr.), where he depicted the Glory of St Paul, portraying the saint surrounded by angels and virtues. At the turn of the century he possibly painted the Death of St Scholastica (c. 1700; Genoa, Pal. Reale) and the Virgin and Souls in Purgatory (Porto Maurizio, S Leonardo), which was paid for in 1703. From 1700 to 1705 he restored Andrea Ansaldo’s dome in SS Annunziata; his style is evident in many of the dome’s figures, but the compartmentalized design was Ansaldo’s. The Triumph in the Name of the Baptist (Sestri Ponente, S Giovanni Battista) and the altarpiece with characteristic elongated figures, St Vincent Ferrer and Child with Other Saints (Taggia, S Domenico), are datable on stylistic grounds to after 1700.
Towards the end of his career, and perhaps stimulated by the work of Gaetano Zumbo and Angelo de Rossi (1671–1715), Gregorio turned to modelling and colouring papier–mâché and plaster figures. His paintings of this time used a smaller figure scale, and were often caprices, set in landscapes with architecture (e.g. the Pool of Bethesda, priv. col., see Newcome, 1979, p. 145). His method of constructing his paintings little by little is particularly visible in the panoramic setting and varied figure scale of such a late work as Moses Striking the Rock (1690s; Genoa, Pal. Rosso) and the Virgin of Lepanto (Genoa, priv. col., see Newcome, 1979, p. 147), on which his son Lorenzo assisted. Gregorio’s last fresco decoration was for the cupola, apse and chapels in SS Camillo e Croce, Genoa. Most of these frescoes, including the Triumph of the True Cross in the octagonal cupola, were designed and painted by Gregorio with the help of his son Lorenzo between 1715 and 1726. Drawings (New York, Met.; Genoa, Pal. Rosso; Chicago, IL, A. Inst.) show that Gregorio also planned the lunette in the apse, Heraklios Carrying the Cross to Jerusalem.
Like Piola, Gregorio supplied designs for a variety of media. He may have supplied drawings (c. 1678–80; Florence, Uffizi) for Filippo Parodi’s Morosini tomb in the church of S Nicolò da Tolentino in Venice, and his designs for frontispieces include a portrait of Francesco Invrea (doge from 1693 to 1695) engraved by Martial Desbois (1630–c. 1700). Other drawings are of mythological subjects . His skill in composing intricate quadratura designs was passed on to his students, Francesco Costa (1672–1740), Imperiale Bottini and (2) Lorenzo de’ Ferrari.
M. Newcome. "Ferrari, de’." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T028010pg1 (accessed April 10, 2012).
Person TypeIndividual
Italian, 1692 - 1770
Italian, c. 1610 - 1665
