GRIMALDI Giovanni Francesco

(Bologna 1608 – Rome 1680)

Painter, engraver and architect, Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi was named “the Bolognese” after his place of origin.
Student of Agostino and Annibale Carracci, he was a highly appreciated artist and his works were sought after by the market.

Since 1627 he has stayed in Rome where he got acquainted with another artist from Bologna, Alessandro Algradi. During this period there were three important facts in the artist’s life: the first commissions for ecclesiastical palaces and private residences, the admission to the Academy of San Luca and the wedding with Elena Luigi Aloisi, daughter of the painter Baldassare Aloisi called Galanino, Bolognese too.

Thus, the inclusion of Grimaldi in the Roman artistic world took place thanks to the group of Emilian painters in the city. Very esteemed by Cardinal Francesco Albani, he performed frescoes in Villa Doria Pamphili designed by himself in collaboration with the sculptor Alessandro Algradi.
His work was also requested by the Popes, first by Innocent X, then by Alexander VII and finally by Clement IX. He painted the frescoed landscapes in the church of San Martino ai Monti.
Cardinal Mazzarino wanted him for almost three years in Paris to perform frescoes in his palace and in the apartments of Queen Anna at Louvre.

Back to Rome in 1651 he resumed his work as a painter of churches and patrician palaces, especially for the Santacroce family. Subsequently, he moved to Tivoli where, on the task of Cardinal Marcello Santacroce, he performed some paintings inside the Cathedral.Following the fame
achieved in 1666 he became Prince of the Academy of San Luca.