Antonio Franchi
Antonio Franchi was an Italian painter and art theorist of the 17th century, active mainly in Florence and Lucca.
Biography
Early life and education
Born in Villa Basilica, he is also called Il Lucchese. Initially training in Lucca with Domenico Ferrucci, he moved for over a decade to Florence, to work with Felice Ficherelli and Baldassare Franceschini. His style unites Neoclassical and Baroque elements and reflects his study of the art of Guido Reni, Pietro da Cortona and Peter Paul Rubens. He returned to Lucca in 1668: most of his early work is to be found there or in the surrounding area.Court painter
In 1674 he established himself in Florence, first under the patronage of the Strozzi family and later under the Medici. The Temple of Love and The Sacrifice were probably painted in that year for the Marchese Pier Francesco Rinuccini and are among his most accomplished works, inspired by Cortona’s romantic vision of the ancient world. In 1683 he was admitted to the Accademia del Disegno, and in 1684 he painted various biblical and mythological scenes for Medici, [Grand Prince">House of Medici">Medici, [Grand Prince of Tuscany], all untraced except for the Garden of Love. In 1686 the Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere appointed Franchi as her official portrait painter. He was inspired by the tradition of court portraiture established by such French artists as Pierre Mignard yet brought to it a new informality and a sharper sense of character.Among his portraits are Lucrezia Rinuccini Corsini, the seven portraits of Anna [Maria Luisa de' Medici] made at the time of her marriage, and a series of portraits of ladies painted for the private apartment of Violante Beatrice of Bavaria. Franchi’s religious works include Joseph’s Vision, the Madonna of the Rosary, both dating from 1694, and the frescoes depicting scenes from the Life of Saint John the Baptist. He painted a Saint John Gualbert in prayer for the Chapel of the saint in the Vallombrosa Abbey and a Madonna and Bambino for the church of Santa Marta, Montopoli in Val d'Arno. Franchi's paintings have the porcelain crispness of design, characteristic of Carlo Dolci; and some the sensuality of a Francesco Furini.Image:Portrait of Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici by Antonio Franchi.jpg|thumb|Antonio Franchi, Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, 1690
Theorical works
Apart from painting, Franchi had scholarly interests: he studied philosophy and worked on scientific inventions. His treatise on painting, Trattato della teorica pittoresca, was completed shortly before his death but left unpublished until 1739, when Giuseppe Rigacci oversaw its publication, dedicated it to the Florentine collector and biographer Niccolò Gabburri and even provided it with a new title: La teorica della pittura. Rigacci may also have altered the structure and contents of the treatise. A few days before his death, Franchi described his ‘little treatise’ to the painter and theorist Ludovico David, whose L’amore dell’arte had influenced him: the first section was to have four chapters of general introduction, followed by five chapters on the forms of painting and finally four chapters on particular artistic problems.Franchi’s contemporary biographers said that he was a follower of the great colourists, and this interest is reflected in his concern for colour and light. Although he described two aspects of disegno, others, such as anatomy, proportion and the study of antiquity, were omitted. He ignored the literary basis of painting, although there is mention of it in the published work. Despite his Venetian sympathies as a artist, as a critic and pedagogue he found that his contemporaries painted too quickly and too abundantly. The second section was planned as a miscellaneous collection of topics relating to connoisseurship and artistic taste. The published work has a more traditional pedagogic format that depends largely upon Gian Paolo Lomazzo.