GIANI, Felice - b. 1758 San Sebastiano Curone, d. 1823 Roma - WGA

GIANI, Felice

(b. 1758 San Sebastiano Curone, d. 1823 Roma)

Italian painter and draughtsman. He was a prolific painter who, with a team of artists and craftsmen, decorated palaces and public buildings in Rome, Venice, many cities in Emilia Romagna (especially Faenza), and in France.

Felice Giani played an interesting role in the development of the Neoclassical style and was in touch with many prominent people on the international cultural scene. He moved to Rome when he was 20 where he immediately found work in the last phase of decorating Palazzo Doria (1780). Although he was already interested in the classical ornamental repertory, the young Giani flirted with visionary Romanticism. In the work that he produced subsequently in Rome and Faenza (Palazzo Zarchia Laderchi and Palazzo Milzetti, his masterpiece), the dynamic flair that had characterized his style before 1800 did not disappear. It seemed rather to be redirected toward re-reading classical antiquity in an eclectic way. The combination of a stay in Paris and the Napoleonic years gave his style one final thrust. He made a second journey to Paris where he painted frescos in the villa of the Secretary of State of the Kingdom of Italy. This commission brought him international renown and put him in touch with the various currents in French painting at the start of the nineteenth century. Giani’s work belongs to the historicist phase that straddled the end of the eighteenth and the start of the nineteenth centuries. His fantasy and ornamental taste took him beyond definitions of Neoclassical or Romantic.

Ceiling decoration

With the Peace of Bratislava (1805), Venice was incorporated into the French Empire. It was decided that a new sovereign’s residence was required for Napoleon and the viceroy, Eug�ne de Beauharnais. Once the idea of converting the Palazzo Ducale had been abandoned, the notion was mooted to use the Procuratie Nuove and the Libreria Marciana for this purpose.

Apart from Giuseppe Borsato, there were also a number of famous non-Venetians involved in decorating the royal palace. Felice Giani was given the task of painting the new apartment for the viceroy made out of the Libreria Marciana. His figures, full of self-confidence enlivened by quick-witted elements set against the whimsical ornamental scheme by Gaetano Bertolani, contain references to Herculaneum and neo-Renaissance motifs.

The picture shows the ceiling decoration for the viceroy’s apartment in the former Libreria Marciana.

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The Marriage of Poseidon and Amphitrite

Felice Giani had studied Raphael and Albani as well as the newly-discovered frescoes at Pompeii. He represented the most fresh and attractive aspect of Neo-Classicism, a style often thought to be cold or monotonous. Despite being tucked away in a provincial town, the Palazzo Milzetti frescos arc continually full of surprises.They make light-hearted use of refined and always well-chosen colours. At the same time, the themes from classical mythology are not treated with pedantic crudition but with imaginative narrative freedom. It is only recently that critics rescued Giani from years of neglect. Today he is considered one of the most interesting figures on the official art scene during the Napoleonic era. Thanks to his never-failing good taste, he managed to cope with even the most difficult subjects. Nor did he limit himself to imitating classical art. On the contrary, he came up with new solutions which were definitely daring.

This mural is in the ante-chamber to a bathroom “along the lines of the Baths of Titus.”

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