\paperw4500 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Italian painter. \par
Trained in the Mannerist style, he entered the academy run by the Carracci at the age of twenty, devoting himse
lf to the study of classical antiquity and Raphael (\i Assumption\i0 at Pieve di Cento). Later he was influenced by Caravaggio (\i Crucifixion of Saint Peter\i0 , Vatican Galleries). In Rome he frescoed the Aldobrandini marriage chamber and the Sala del
le Dame in the Vatican (1608-09), San Gregorio al Celio, and the chapel of the Annunciata in the Quirinal. The peak of his work, in which the world of antiquity and the Renaissance is presented in terms of nostalgia for a solemn yet naturalistic beauty,
was reached in the \i Slaughter of the Innocents\i0 (Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and \i Aurora\i0 (Rome, Casino of Palazzo Rospigliosi Pallavicini). Settling permanently in Bologna, he painted the \i Pietα\i0 in Santa Maria dei Mendicanti and the
\i Labors of Hercules\i0 for the duke of Mantua (Paris, Louvre). The masterpieces of the last years of his life include the \i Adoration of the Shepherds\i0 (1640-42, London, National Gallery, and Naples, charterhouse of San Martino) and \i Cleopatra
\i0 (ca. 1640-42, Rome, Pinacoteca Capitolina). In these works his style of painting tends to fray into harmonious patterns and highly refined combinations of color.
