LIGARI, Pietro

Italian painter and architect, considered to be the most important 18th-century painter in Valtellina. He was born into a bourgeois family which took its name from the village Ligari where they lived. He was the founder of a family of painters linked to their land of origin but culturally open and active outside Valtellina. His son Caesar (1716-1770) and daughter Vittoria (1713-1783) were also painters.

At twelve-years age Pietro Ligari went to Rome where he studied with Lazarus Baldi, a follower of Pietro da Cortona, and absorbed the influences of Baroque painting. After a study tour in Central Italy and Venice, in 1710 he settled in Milan, then in 1727 he moved to Valtellina where most of his works can be found.