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Francesco Ferrari (1634–1708) was an Italian painter and architect of the Baroque period, active in Ferrara and across Northern Italy and Vienna.
Biography
Born near Rovigo, and moved into Ferrara. He had been instructed in figure painting by a Frenchman, and afterwards became professor of architectural and ornamental painting under the Bolognese painter Gabriel Rossi. Ferrari painted The Dispute of St Cirillo and the Prayer of Elias elicits Rain for the church of San Paolo, Ferrara. He also painted for the Carmine and at San Giorgio. He worked also for theaters and in different Italian cities as an architect, including in the service of Leopold I at Vienna. Being constrained to leave Germany on account of his health, he returned to Ferrara.
Among his pupils were Mornassi, Grassaleoni, Paggi, Raffanelli, Giacomo Filippi, and one who surpassed all the rest, Antonfelice Ferrari, his son.
References
- Lanzi, Luigi (1847). Thomas Roscoe (translator) (ed.). History of Painting in Italy; From the Period of the Revival of the Fine Arts to the End of the Eighteenth Century. III. London; Original from Oxford University, Digitized January, 2007: Henry G. Bohn. p. 225.