Biography

Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri) was born in Bologna and trained there, first under the naturalised Flemish artist Denys Calvaert, and then in the Carracci Academy. In 1602 he moved to Rome and became a favoured pupil and protégé of Annibale Carracci, assisting him with the completion of the celebrated Farnese Gallery. Domenichino was the leading exponent of the more restrained, classical tendency in Italian painting of the first half of the seventeenth century, characterised by ordered, easily legible compositions and clearly articulated gestures and expressions. His working method was painstaking, with compositions carefully planned in preparatory drawings and studies, the majority of them preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Among his most important commissions were the frescoes in the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome, two huge altarpieces for churches in his native Bologna, and the highly prestigious commission for frescoes and altarpieces in the Cappella di San Gennaro in Naples Cathedral. Following the example of Carracci, he made a fundamental contribution to the development of landscape painting in Italy.