NAPPI, Francesco by Stefano L'Occaso - Biographical Dictionary of Italians - Volume 77 (2012)

He was born in Milan by Giovan Paolo around 1565, if the indication provided by the contemporary , who says he died sixty-five years old (1642, p.31), is correct; the later indication that he died "about 1638" (Orlandi, 1719) erroneously dragged Pietro Zani (1823), who sets the date of birth to 1573. The name of the mother is unknown.

Nothing is known of any formation at home; Father Sebastiano Resta said so "in Milan, a schoolboy of Morazzone" (Nicodemi, 1956), but this is unlikely, since he was born in 1573. From the same Baglione, his first biographer, we know that Nappi arrived in , we think about half of 'last decade of the sixteenth century, after a stay in Veneto: «A painter came from Milan, called Francesco Nappi, who had previously lived in Vinegia, who was making fun of all the Painters of Rome» (1642, p. ). Yet a certain integration in the Roman context is attested, since the early years of the new century, in addition to the numerous works carried out, from its participation, at least from 1603 to 1627, to the congregations of the Academy of St. Luca (Calenne, 2010, p 109 No. 2). Listing the works in an apparently chronological order, Baglione starts from a frieze "with some Sea Monsters, and Nymphs, of a very good manner" (1642, p 310), today lost, frescoed by Nappi in the courtyard of a house owned by Giovan Battista Crivelli, in Via dei Cappellari, followed «On the old façade of the Palazzo di Madama, around the alarm of the Grand Duke of Tuscany» from «two great Putti to fresh, very good», also disappeared. Father Resta recalls, around 1710, other Nappi paintings "almost all of them demolished or bleached for the adjustment of the small porch between the two courtyards of the Tocci house" (Nicodemi, 1956); it is not clear if it referred to those of the Crivelli house. If the sequence proposed by Baglione is correct, the paintings of Nappi in the chapel of the "garzoni degli osti" in S. Maria della Consolazione estimated in 1597 by and (Cosmo, 1985, P. 114 No. 19): the lower half was stolen from the Assumption on the altar in 2011 (Isman, 2012) and the frescoes on the walls ( Stories of the Virgin ) appear in poor condition. The work, in which the artist's substratum comes out more than elsewhere, was welded in 1601 (Calenne, 2010, pp. 133 s.). In 1597 there is the fresco, still existing, depicting St. Joseph , painted by the artist in the University of Carpenters at the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Maniello Cardone, 2005). In the same year, the «Pier Francesco Milanese» involved in a fight with Giacomo Galli could be Nappi (Lafranconi, 2002) or, more likely, Morazzone (Stoppa, 2003, pp. 24 s.).

In 1600 he waited for the decoration of the apse of S. Giacomo degli Incurabili ( Angels in the apsidal basin, Ss. Matteo and Marco and the Collection of the manna on the left wall), performed on commission of Cardinal Antonio Maria Salviati, on the occasion of the Jubilee; his participation in that enterprise can be seen from the testimonies of the contemporary Gaspare Celio (1638) who refers to the paintings of the "Tribona", on the invention of the Novarese Giovan Battista Ricci, and of Baglione (1642, p. "Manna in the desert with many figures: and above there are two Saints; all painted in fresco: & again in the vault are Angels, and puttini del Nappi ». In this decoration - as well as in the subsequent paintings of the vaults of the cloister of S. Maria sopra Minerva - a link was found with the Alberti family painting, original artists of Borgo San Sepolcro (Strinati, 1979, p.77, Macioce, 1990 , pp. 97), or a possible collaboration with the viterbese Tarquinio Ligustri (Calenne, 2010, pp. 153 s.). The news that Nappi has painted, in collaboration with Giovanni Alberti, a façade of the Quirinale palace (Thieme - Becker) has not yet been confirmed. Still in the 1600s Nappi was paid for some paintings in S. Nicola in Carcere ("a bon bill of painting that makes to Nicolao in Carcere": quoted in Abromson, 1976, page 354), where the painters Marco worked Tullio, and Giovanni Baglione; this is probably the work carried out under the direction of Cavalier d'Arpino, commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, in the chapel of the Ss. Sacramento (Calenne, 2010, p.152). From 31 August 1601 - albeit referred to as "Jac or Nappi" - and until 10 May 1602, he was paid for his participation in the construction of the mosaics of the Clementine Chapel in St. Peter, realized and probably concluded in 1601 under the guidance of Cristofano Roncalli, the Pomarancio (Thieme - Becker, Kirwin, 1972, p.532). Among the other aid of Pomarancio in that yard was Prospero Orsi, with whom Nappi also collaborated later; from Roncalli he learned the way to color and a fullness of the forms we find in his later works as also affirmed by Father Resta, who writes that Nappi "in Rome had taken a mirar in Cav. Roncalli so much that the figurines in medals seemed his "(see Nicodemi, 1956). In November 1603 he worked for Cardinal Cesare Baronio (Smith O'Neil, 1985), painting "those dark colored canvases, which for the octave of the Dead are seen on the walls inside the Church of s. Gregorio in Monte Celio "(Baglione, 1642, page 311) still existing in the early eighteenth century but later lost (Pedrocchi, 1993, pp. 83, 147). Particularly skilled, according to Baglione, in the "bizarre and dark bizarre decorations with different whims, very good and tasty" (1642, p 311), Nappi demonstrated this talent in the frescoes of the cloister of S. Maria sopra Minerva, perhaps his masterpiece, realizing paintings that "seem miniatures, so much has it retouched, and hunted so, that they do not seem to be worked in fresco, but dry" (Baglione, 1642, 310). As recently clarified, the commission of these frescoes, begun in 1603 and completed in 1607, is due to Bishop Andrea Fernández de Córdoba (Calenne, 2010, pp. 141-45).

Nappi can refer to the Ascension , the Assumption and Pentecost , along the northern arm, the Coronation of the Virgin , along the western arm, as well as some of the paintings in the vaults of the bays, with the help of the workshop. In them and in general in his first Roman production, he was identified as "a complex game of equilibrium between late Veronese painting, the Venetian manner of Palma il Giovane, the intellectual exercises of A. Figino and Pederzano", which would have constituted the basis for his painting "completely anti-academic" (Strinati, 1980, p.48 n.52), according to a judgment that is not totally shareable. Already Lanzi (1809) noted that the artist "is varied; and where he has painted in his Lombard style, as in an Assumption at the cloister of Minerva and in other things at Humility, he is a naturalist who is more satisfied than the Mannerists of his time. " In these frescoes there are important tangencies with the Pomarancio and the Cavalier d'Arpino, but also with the early Roman works of Morazzone, in S. Silvestro in Capite. At the same time Nappi remained a stranger to the classicist carraccesche instances and to the novelties of . The groups of ocher figures depicted on the frescoed pilasters between the scenes, on the walls, with entrenched satiresque figures, were also referred to the Modenese Giovan Battista Magni or to the Bolognese Giovan Luigi Valesio (Calenne, 2010, pp. 157, 161 s. ); for the one between the Assumption and the Ascension a possible preparatory drawing has been traced, conserved in Paris (Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, inv. 21400 r; L'Occaso, 2010).

Early paintings of the seventeenth century should also be the paintings, made together with the Roman Girolamo Nanni, in the Gregorian chapel in S. Croce in Gerusalemme; the frescoes, in a very poor state of preservation, depict the Blessed Trinity with the Virgin , ss. monks , angels , the souls of purgatory , St. Gregory and St. Bernard .

In 1607 he took part, together with Celio, Nanni, Orsi and Cristoforo Greppi, to work in the Vatican apartment of Paolo V; the paintings were estimated by Ricci the following year (Bertolotti, 1881A, p.78, Pupillo, 1998, p.306). In 1608 he painted in the house of the Signori Crescentij friezes of room, they say with very beautiful whims "(Baglione, 1642, p 310), part of which was identified in the frieze with Putti present in the palace that was the property of Giovan Battista Crescenzi , in piazza della Rotonda (Kirwin, 1972, page 489 No. 261); in this decoration the Pomarancio's ways are awkwardly stiffened. Two drawings traditionally attributed to Roncalli and kept at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne (Li 507-39 and Ll 507-41), preparatory for these friezes, were consequently linked to Nappi, but the perplexities expressed towards this proposal are understandable. (Pupillo, 1998, page 309 No. 40).

He could also have worked for Vincenzo Giustiniani, if he can refer to a (undated) payment of 243 scudi intended for "painting in Napo" (Calenne, 2010, page 116, No. 16). Around 1607-08 he had to form a partnership with Celio alongside whom he worked in and where he painted, in 1608, a panel with the Sacrifice of Isaac frescoed in the «dark room» (Panofsky - Soergel, 1968, p.138), copy from Tintoretto (Scuola Grande di S. Rocco, Calenne, 2010, p.137). On 16 August 1612, the "societas" was extended to , for "all those works that will come from the R. fabrica di S. Pietro"; a different and specific agreement between the three artists was stipulated on January 5, 1613, for the decoration of the Chapel of the Treasure of St. Gennaro in the cathedral of Naples, and January 26, 1613, for works to be carried out in the small church of St. Thomas 'Aquino in Naples, commissioned by Tommaso d'Avalos (Pupillo, 1998). None of the agreements signed by the three artists could probably be put into practice.

In 1609 he lived, opposite S. Marcello al Corso, together with the Urbino painter Giovanni Maria Gherardi (Bertolotti, 1881B); the following year he still shared the dwelling with Gherardi and, from 1608, Orazio Zecca da Montefortino had as his apprentice (Bertolotti, 1881A, p.79; Calenne, 2010, pp. 109-32). On September 5, 1613 he was paid "for days 29, shield 1 for each day, made by him and days 9 by his young Gismondo to make different paintings in the garden" of Villa d'Este in Tivoli, commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro d'Este (Seni, 1902, p.120); his collaborator was such "Gismondo Straccia" (Calenne, 2010, pp 132, 53). Nothing remains of the paintings executed, around 1613, commissioned by Francesca Baglioni Orsini, in S. Maria dell'Umiltà (Baglione, 1642, 310, Calenne, 2010, page 139). The paintings were lost with the seventeenth-century restructuring of the church, although later Titi (1763, p.327) stated that "the picture in the main altar is believed by the Nappi". Lost is also "a figure of s. Sebastiano stood in fresco "to the Ss Apostles, with whom Nappi intended" to clarify the Painters of Rome, but he remained the clarified "(Baglione, 1642, 310).

In 1616 the Disputations by Mario Altieri were published, with a frontispiece of which Nappi was the "inventor" and "Christophorus Blancus Lotharingius" the engraver (Calenne, 2010, p.159). In 1618 he worked for the Alveri family (ibid., P.134). On 5 April 1621 he was commissioned with Matteo Pagani to paint the triumphal arch prepared for the election of Pope Gregory XV (Masetti Zannini, 1966). Among the latest works are the paintings of the Annunziata chapel in S. Maria in Monserrato, which denounce the heavy qualitative involution already noted by Baglione (1642, p.31);the frescoes with Stories of the Virgin and the altarpiece - depicting the Annunciation - date back to 1624-26 (Fernández Alonso, 1968). Titi (1763, p.120) also incorrectly reports the paintings in the chapel of the Crucifix to the artist.

The corpus graphic is limited, in addition to the drawing preserved in the Louvre, a few other sheets, two of which are kept in the Cabinet drawings and prints of the Uffizi of and referred to Nappi from ancient writings: a Madonna with Child and s. Giovannino (inv. 13302 F) and a Prophet (or Apostle ) with scroll (inv. 13303 F; Ferri, 1890).

He died on 13 May 1630 in Rome, in the district of S. Andrea delle Fratte (Thieme - Becker, Mazzetti di Pietralata, 2003, page 23, No. 3).

To Nappi were also attributed (Titi, 1763, p.335, Strinati, 1979) an Annunciation on canvas in S. Maria in Aquiro, then returned to the Capuchin Paolo Piazza (Fumagalli, 2002), and the frescoes ( Prophets and angels in dome and Stories of the Baptist ) and the altarpiece depicting the Baptist in the desert of the Naro chapel in S. Maria sopra Minerva (Strinati, 1979, p.77, Id., 1985, pp. 38 s.); also of these last paintings the assignment has changed: the frescoes are the work of the Florentine Jacopo Berni (1601-03) and the canvas was painted in 1606 by the Maceratese Giuseppe Bastiani (Nicolai, 2008, p.95). The link between the paintings of this chapel and the frescoes of the Marliani chapel, of uncertain author, in S. Maria delle Grazie in Milan (Bora, 1983) is not very persuasive. The decorations of two apses in S. Caterina della Rota are mentioned - it is not clear on what bases - as late but certain works by Nappi, "a sort of expressionistic epilogue of his parable" (Strinati, 1979, p.78). Sources and Bibl .: G. Celio, Memory of the names of the artisans of the paintings that are in some churches ... of Rome (Naples 1638), edited by E. Zocca, Milan 1967, p. 17; G. Baglione, The Lives of Painters, Sculptors and Architects ..., Rome 1642, pp. 310 s .; G. Biffi, Paintings, sculptures and architectural orders ... (about 1704-05), edited by M. Bona Castellotti - S. Colombo, Milan 1990, p. 76 n. 3; PA Orlandi, the pictorial abcedario ... , Bologna 1719, p. 173; F. Titi, Description of the paintings, sculptures and architectures ... in Rome , Rome 1763, to ind .; L. Lanzi, Pictorial History of ... (Bassano 1809), edited by M. Capucci, II, Florence 1970, p. 331; P. Zani, Encyclopedia ... of the fine arts, XIV, 1, Parma 1823, p. 16; M. Missirini, Memories to serve the history of the Roman Academy of St. Luke ... , Rome 1823, p. 466; A. Bertolotti, Lombard Artists in Rome ... , II, Milan 1881A, pp. 78 s., 102; Id., Urbino artists in Rome before the eighteenth century , Rome 1881B, p. 32; PN Ferri, Catalog summarizing the collection of drawings ... from the R. Uffizi Gallery of Florence , Rome 1890, p. 273; FS Seni, The Villa d'Este in Tivoli , Rome 1902, p. 120; G. Nicodemi, The notes of Sebastiano Resta ... , in Historical Studies in honor of Msgr. Angelo Mercati , Milan 1956, p. 288; GL Masetti Zannini, The Popes in Campidoglio , Capitolium , XLI (1966), p. V; G. Panofsky-Soergel, Zur Geschichte des Palazzo Mattei di Giove , in Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte , XI (1967-68), p. 138; J. Fernández Alonso, S. Maria di Monserrato , Rome 1968, p. 28; WC Kirwin, Cristofano Roncalli ... , Ph. D. Stanford Univ., Stanford 1972, pp. 297 n. 655, 489 nos. 261, 532; MC Abromson, Painting in Rome during the Papacy of Clement VIII (1592-1605) , Ph. D. Columbia Univ., New York 1976, pp. 354, 364; C. Strinati, Roman Paintings between '500 and' 600 ... (catalog), Rome 1979, pp. 74-78; Id., Rome in the year 1600. Study of painting , in researches of art history , X (1980), pp. 35 s., 38 s., 47 sn 52; G. Bora, in The Church of S. Maria delle Grazie , edited by GA Dell'Acqua - C. Bertelli, Milan 1983, p. 170; G. Cosmo, The intervention of FN in the vaults of the cloister of S. Maria sopra Minerva , in the art bulletin , s. 6, LXX (1985), 29, pp. 105-114; L. Spezzaferro, An entrepreneur of the early seventeenth century: Giovanni Battista Crescenzi , in Research in History of Art , XXVI (1985), pp. 63 nos. 27, 33-34, 66 n. 90; M. Smith O'Neil, The patronage of cardinal Cesare Baronio at S. Gregorio Magno , in Baronio and art. 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Mazzetti di Pietralata, Grottesche and landscapes in the vaults of the cloister of S. Maria sopra Minerva, in Decoration and collecting in Rome in the seventeenth century , edited by F. Cappelletti, Rome 2003, pp. 21-28; J. Stoppa, Il Morazzone , Milan 2003, pp. 30 sn 39; S. Maniello Cardone, An «S. Giuseppe »by FN for the University of Carpenters in Campidoglio, in Alma Roma , XLVI (2005), 2-3, pp. 35-72; S. Pierguidi, Giving humana form to Honore et a la Virtù , Rome 2008, pp. 59, 62, 64; F. Nicolai, The commissioning and collecting of the Naro family in seventeenth-century Rome , in Studies of Art History , XIX (2008), pp. 170, 177; Id., Mecenati compared , Rome 2008, pp. 94, 95, 105 n. 14, 106 n. 25; M. Fileti Mazza, History of a collection ... , Florence 2009, pp. 231, 242, 285; S. L'Occaso, A drawing by FN for the cloister of S. Maria sopra Minerva? , in Dominican Memories , XL (2009), pp. 339-341; L. Calenne, First research on Orazio Zecca da Montefortino (today Artena) , Roma2010, ad ind. ; F. Isman, Tela cut and stolen ... , in Il Messaggero, 4 January 2012, p. 30; U. Thieme - F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon, XXV, p. 343

Translated from: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/francesco-nappi_(Dizionario-Biografico)/