CORVI, Domenico
Italian painter, draftsman, and engraver. After some early works in Viterbo and Palestrina, Corvi moved on to Rome to work under Francesco Mancini (c. 1679-1758), working in a Roman milieu where late-Rococo of Pompeo Batoni and the incipient Neoclassicism of Anton Raphael Mengs coexisted, and fashioned a style in between.
His first major set of independent works in Rome are a series of canvases (completed in 1758 and currently in the Certosa di Vedana) commissioned by the Cardinal Domenico Amedeo Orsini.
In 1756 along with Vincenzo Strigelli (1713-1769) and Anton Angelo Falaschi he frescoed the Oratorio del Gonfalone in Viterbo. The patronage of the Antonelli family gained him the commission for three altarpieces (1754 and 1756) for the church of Senigallia. He also painted for the Church of San Marcello, and a series of historical canvases for Palazzo Barberini.
In 1770-78 Corvi frescoed ceilings for the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj and Borghese Palace. In the Borghese villa he frescoed a Triumph of Apollo (1771) and an Aurora (1782). Again for the Borghese family, he helped restore the Capella Paolina in Santa Maria Maggiore and the Loggia of Lanfranco in the casino. He also painted for the Palazzo dei Conservatori. In 1774-1778 Corvi completed a canvas cycle for the Swiss Abbey of Solothurn.
Corvi joined the artists’ Accademia dell’Arcadia. Among his pupils were Giuseppe Cades, Giovanni David (1743-1790), Francesco Alberi (1765-1836) and Vincenzo Camuccini.
