Gregorio de Ferrari

After the death of Domenico Fiasella (1589-1669), a Genoese fresco painter with whom Ferrari studied from about 1664 to 1668, Ferrari went to Parma for approximately four years, where he copied works by Correggio and probably also encountered Giovanni Battista (Baciccio). On his return to Genoa, he began working with Domenico Piola (1627-1703), an important Genoese palace decorator of the period, and influenced Piola's subsequent painting style. Ferrari married Piola's daughter in 1674. In addition to numerous ecclesiastical commissions, Ferrari painted works in Genoese palaces and villas, including the Palazzo Balbi-Senarega, Palazzo Brignole-Sale (now Palazzo Rosso), Palazzo Centurione, and Palazzo Saluzzo, as well as the Villa Balbi allo Zerbino in Gropallo. Ferrari may have worked on the decorations for the Real Palazzo in Turin (now destroyed) about 1690. Ferrari is not known to have traveled to many other artistic centers in Italy, but nevertheless learned of major trends in illusionistic painting elsewhere on the peninsula from fellow artists and from drawings and prints. In 1692, he was invited to work in Marseilles, and returned to Genoa in 1693.

After the turn of the century, Ferrari was occupied mainly with painting ecclesiastical commissions; his last were frescoes in the church of Santa Croce and San Camillo, Genoa (1715-26).