FACCINI, Pietro
(b. ca. 1562, Bologna, d. 1602, Bologna)

Biography

Italian painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He began to paint around the age of 30 and produced only about a dozen paintings, datable between 1590 and 1602. Malvasia mentioned his training in the Carracci Academy in Bologna, which ended c. 1594 when Faccini, envious of Annibale Carracci's rapid success, opened his own school.

Until his last works, Faccini remained basically faithful to the tenets of the Carracci, and, gradually adding ideas gathered in diverse artistic circles, he developed a language of his own, characterized by great formal freedom and a lively, full-bodied use of colour.

In 1590, he painted the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, now found in the church of San Giovanni in Monte, Bologna. He completed altarpieces for San Domenico and Santa Maria dei Servi in 1593-1594 and a Presepio, now in the Pinacoteca of Bologna.