MARIESCHI Michele

(Venice 1710 – 1743)

Venetian painter, engraver and set designer, prematurely orphan of his father, he learnt the first rudiments of pictorial art from his maternal grandfather Antonio Meneghini, painter, decorator and stage designer.
He was then a pupil of Gaspare Diziani, a painter born in Belluno who, at the marriage of Marieschi in 1737, was the best-man of Angela Fontana, daughter of a wealthy paint merchant.  The artist provided Diziani with a large number of valuable paintings with views of Venice and with imaginative landscapes, especially sought after by foreign buyers.
After a first period of activity in Venice, he travelled to Garmania, possibly led by Diziani, who had already worked in that country as a theatre set designer.
In 1735 he was in Fano for the funerals preparation for Queen of Poland Maria Clementina Sobiesky’s death.
From 1738, he started to engrave the magnificent series of twenty-one plates with views of Venice solemnly titled “Magnificentiores Selectioresque Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus“, shortly before the complete edition of the Venice Visions (printed in 1742) of Visentini-Canaletto.
Critics unanimously consider Marieschi a very high quality engraver especially for the wise way to treat the light and for the amplification of scenic views.
The artist died as he just turned thirty-two. His activity was continued by the painter and engraver Francesco Albotto who married the still young Angela Fontana, widow of Marieschi, in 1744.