Domenichino [key], 1581–1641, Italian painter, b. Bologna. He was one of the principal pupils of the Carracci, beginning as Ludovico Carracci's assistant in Bologna. In 1602 he went to Rome, where he worked with Annibale Carracci in the Farnese Palace. Later he carried out numerous fresco commissions for Roman churches, of which the most important are the Martyrdom of St. Andrew in San Gregorio Magno, the Life of St. Cecilia in San Luigi de' Francesci (1615–17), and the decoration of Sant' Andrea della Valle (1624–28). The finest easel painting of his early Roman years is the Last Communion of St. Jerome. He also worked in Naples, designing frescoes (unfinished) of a more baroque nature for the chapel of San Gennaro in the cathedral. As an adherent of classical doctrine and as an influential landscape painter, Domenichino has a place of considerable importance.
See catalog of drawings by J. W. Pope-Hennessy (1948).
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