Francesco Battaglioli
Italian, 1717-1796
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Francesco Battaglioli was an Italian painter, known as painter of veduta and capriccios based on the scenery of Venice and the Venetian mainland (Brescia and Treviso).
Battaglioli was born in Modena. He is said to have been a pupil of Raffaello Rinaldi. He joined the Fraglia or guild of painters in Venice between 1747-51. He became a member of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice in 1772, and he succeeded Antonio Visentini as professor of perspective in 1778.
Some of his veduta are of Aranjuez in Spain, where he went to paint scenery sets for the Reales Coliseos theater held in the Palacio Real de Aranjuez for the delight of Ferdinand VI. It is believed they were a set of at least four, of which two are exhibited at the Prado Museum in Madrid. Here he also worked with Farinelli in painting stage sets for Pietro Metastasio's operas. From that series four of them are preserved at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (La Nitteti, Didone Abbandonata, Armida Placata Second Act, scene VII, and Knight fighting dragons in a forest), another at the Prado (Armida Placata First Act, scene IV). Battaglioli's veduta were engraved by Francisco Zucchi and used to illustrate Baldassare Camillo Zamboni's Memorie intorno alle pubbliche fabbriche (1778).
