Abstract EN:

One of the most renowned among Pietro da Cortona’s pupils, the painter Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (1612 – 1662) developed a privileged relationship with France during the middle decades of the seventeenth century. Not only Romanelli sold many of his artworks to French patrons, he also worked in Paris on several occasions, even realising large decorative programmes for the Mazzarino Palace (1646-1647) and for the Louvre Palace (1655-1657). These artistic endeavours represent pivotal events in the context of the relationships and cultural exchanges between France and Italy in this period. Romanelli’s art and persona still enjoyed some success in France during the eighteenth century. This is evidenced by the presence of his works in numerous French collections and in the French art market, as well as by the publication in this period of literary accounts on his art and life written in French.The present thesis seeks to illustrate the reputation and reception of Romanelli’s persona and art in the French context from 1640 till the last decades of the eighteenth century. The research project hence focuses on the French patronage and collecting of works by Romanelli, on the painter’s persona and art as recounted in contemporary artistic literature, as well as on the diffusion of the artist’s works through print reproductions in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The thesis begins by examining three case studies: Romanelli’s frescoes for the episcopal palace in Carpentras and his decorative programmes for the Cardinal Mazzarino’s Palace and for the summer apartments of the queen mother Anna from Austria at the Louvre. Then the dissertation moves on to explore two additional groups of artworks: French altarpieces attributed to Romanelli, as well as paintings by him which were included in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French collections. Both testify for the abundant presence of Romanelli’s art in France over the period examined.The investigation of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French artistic literature referring to Romanelli, consisting in publications belonging to various literary genres (biographies, guides, travelogues and epic poems), allows to unearth contemporary French commentators’ various opinions on the artistic qualities recognised or denied to the Italian artist. Romanelli’s qualities and persona were shaped in association with those of painters understood as being his artistic models, such as his master Pietro da Cortona or other painters akin to his style like Reni. Finally, this thesis looks at the diffusion of Romanelli’s oeuvre through print reproductions, which helps to shed further light on the reputation of the Italian painter’s persona and art in France during the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The present work particularly focuses on prints after Romanelli’s works made by French engravers, as well as on the rationale guiding the selection among his corpus of works to be reproduced through print. In order to understand the meanings behind these selective choices, it is important to take into account not only the works which ended up being reproduced, but also those which were instead neglected.Analysing and comparing findings from these four key aspects of Romanelli’s presence in the seventeenth and eighteenth century French artistic context has allowed to build up a thorough description of the painter’s textual and visual reputation in this country during the two centuries examined.