Paolo Pagani
Italian, 1655-1716
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Paolo Pagani also known as Paolo Antonio Pagani or Paolo Pagano, was an Italian Baroque/Mannerism painter of the 17th century.
Pagani was born in Valsolda, now a municipality in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of Milan and bordering Switzerland. In 1667 he moved to Venice, where he made a series of ten aquatints from works by Giuseppe Diamantini (1621–1705). In 1675 he painted the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus. The painting was exhibited at Palazzo Molin, and is currently located in the National Gallery of Spinola in Genoa. In 1690 he was invited to Vienna by the Emperor Leopold I.
In 1696 he returned to Valsolda where he frescoed what is considered his masterwork: the nave of the parish church of San Martino. The work, completed the year of the birth of Tiepolo, who would master the art of the luminous fresco, astounds with the use of bright colors and swirling sotto in su perspective as a fresco technique.
Pagani died in Milan on 5 May 1716. His former house in Valsolda has been converted in a museum dedicated to his work in 2004.