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MAGNO, Giovanni Battista - b. ~1591 Modena, d. 1674 Roma - WGA

MAGNO, Giovanni Battista

(b. ~1591 Modena, d. 1674 Roma)

Giovanni Battista Magno (Magni, Manni), called Modanino, Italian painter. It is assumed that his father was Marcantonio Magno, documented in Rome between 1606 and 1611, and active in the Vatican palaces and the Quirinale in 1607.

In 1624 he was a resident in Rome, where in 1633 he was elected member of the Accademia di San Luca. He was a quadratura painter and participated in the decoration of numerous palaces in Rome from the 1630s (Palazzo Cenci, Palazzo Madama, Palazzo Quirinale, Palazzo Colonna).

Hall in the Appartamento Estivo
Hall in the Appartamento Estivo by

Hall in the Appartamento Estivo

The powerful Colonna family had lived on the western slope of the Quirinale in Rome since the Middle Ages. Over the years it managed to link together the various houses it had built and purchased over time into a unified ensemble of palaces, courtyards, and gardens. In the seventeenth century, the art-loving cardinal Girolamo I Colonna (1604-1666) began turning the complex into a Baroque residence. Construction began in 1650. The south wing, containing the Grande Galleria, was built between 1661 and 1700 at the behest of the cardinal’s nephew Lorenzo Onofrio (1637-1689).

The modernization of the interiors was begun in the Appartamento Estivo on the ground floor of the palace. The picture shows one of the halls where the walls are decorated with wall-high simulated openings presenting views of either Arcadian, idyllic countryside or stormy and peaceful seascapes. The painted architecture is the work of Giovanni Battista Magno, while the fourteen landscapes are by Gaspard Dughet.

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