RIDOLFI, Carlo - b. 1594 Lonigo, d. 1658 Venezia

Italian painter and art biographer. He was a pupil of the painter Antonio Vassilacchi and was active in Venice and Dalmatia. He preferred to work in the style of an earlier generation of artists, namely that of Titian and Tintoretto. In 1642 he published the biography of Tintoretto, and in 1648 he wrote an encyclopedic treatment of Venetian painting entitled Le Meraviglie dell’Arte ovvero, Le vite degli Illustri Pittori Veneti and dello Stato. He was awarded the kinghthood of the Golden Cross by Pope Innocent X, and the Venetian Republic named him a Knight of the Order of Saint Mark.

Paolo Veronese

In 1648, the painter and art historiographer Carlo Ridolfi published an extensive biography of Veronese. This portrait introduces the painter’s Vita, and is probably based on a self-portrait, now lost, then in the possession of Veronese’s descendants in Venice in the second half of the 17th century.

This engraving is from Carlo Ridolfi, Le maraviglie dell’arte ovvero le vite degli illustri pittori veneti e dello stato (Venice 1648, vol. l, p.282)