FIALETTI Odoardo

(Bologna 1572 – Venice c. 1637)

Italian painter and etcher born in Bologna. In the “Felsina pittrice: Vite de pittori Bolognesi …” Malvasia indicates him as a posthumous son of a ‘Doctor Odoardo’. He was entrusted to his older brother who put him as an apprentice at the school of painter Giovan Battista Cremonini. Later, he moved to Venice where he attended the Tintoretto workshop. After the latter’s death, even if in the wake of the Venetian tradition of late Mannerism, Fialetti contributed to the transmission of style and models in harmony with the artistic evolution of the Baroque period. In his paintings of the first decade of the XVII century there is some extension of the figures according to the Parmigianino models. This harmonizes the style of the Venetians, above all Tintoretto’s, with the style of Emilian painting. This harmony has been maintained in all the pictorial production of Fialetti.

In a letter sent to the Malvasia by the Baroque painter Marco Boschini, 38 Fialetti’s canvases were listed, which unfortunately are largely lost today. He is best known for his extensive graphic work, consisting of about 240 etchings in which compositional elements derived from Agostino Carracci are evident.

The subjects of his engravings are very varied and include reproduction and invention prints. Probably, he died in Venice in 1637