826 massimo favilla, ruggero rugolo, and dulcia meijers
consider the renewed fortunes this type of painting registered, particu-
larly in Venice in the second half of the century, at least as far as churches
are concerned: first Pietro ricchi (Lucca, 1606–Udine, 1675) in the cloister
of Santi Giovanni e Paolo and in San Giuseppe di Castello, together with
the quadraturista Pietro antonio torri from Bologna and later the roman
(and student of Pietro da Cortona) Girolamo Pellegrini (rome, 1624–
Venice? post-1700) in the vault of the presbytery and in the apsidal can
tina in San Pietro di Castello, in the apse of San Zaccaria, in the Sagredo
chapel in San Francesco della Vigna, and in the cupola of Santi Cosmi e
Damiano in the Giudecca. in San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti, the ceiling was
painted “by fresco with a most lovely architecture by Faustin Moretti of
Brescia with the figures of Cavalier Liberi”;41 in San Martino di Castello,
one could admire “the vault of the sacristy” decorated “by fresco with
beautiful architecture by Simone Guglielmi da Piove [di Sacco] and the
figures of antonio Zanchi,” while Domenico Bruni and Giacomo Pedrali,
two other artists from Brescia, had worked on the heavens for the nave.
Wall paintings covered the Church of the Ognissanti through the work of
agostino Litterini, and in San Luca the work of Domenico Bruni;42 just as
in 1675 the newly rebuilt church of San Silvestro was waiting for its vast
ceiling to be “painted in fresco along with other ornaments.”43 For this
work, the choice in 1682 would fall upon the young Louis Dorigny, who
had only recently arrived in the city.
the ceilings of churches and palaces were in many cases characterized
by the simultaneous presence of painted figures and ephemeral architec-
tural forms (quadratura), the latter painted by specialized artists. Such a
stratagem, of clearly theatrical provenance, was used to amplify artificially
the architectonic space. Beginning in the 1660s, Bolognese quadratura
made its appearance in the territories of the republic as well, richer and
more articulated with the infusion of vegetal and floral elements com-
pared to that already in use with origins in Brescia, which stood out for
the tight, regular intervals of its design. the Bolognese school established
itself with success thanks to its principal exponents Pietro antonio Cerva,
Pietro antonio torri, antonio Felice Ferrari and Ferdinando Fochi, lead-
ing finally in the first decades of the new century to the production of the
41 nicolò Doglioni, Le cose notabili et maravigliose della città di Venetia (Venice, 1675),
p. 158.
42 Francesca Flores d’arcais, “La grande decorazione nel Veneto,” in Lucco, ed., La pit
tura nel Veneto, 2:645–70.
43 Doglioni, Le cose notabili, p. 160.