Biography

Italian painter. His career is inextricably linked to that of Giovanni Coli, with whom he collaborated until Coli's death in 1681. The phases of their training and careers are identical. He studied first with his father Sebastiano Gherardi, then with the Lucchese artist Pietro Paolini, and later, and most importantly, in the Roman workshop of Pietro da Cortona.

Around 1662 he went to Venice, where, together with Coli, he was one of a circle of Baroque artists who, heavily influenced by the art of Veronese, sought to breathe new life into the tradition of Venetian painting. Still in collaboration with Coli, he painted the canvases for the library of the monastery of S Giorgio Maggiore (1664-68). In Rome in 1669 the two artists painted the frescoes on the dome of S Nicola da Tolentino. In 1672 they were back in Lucca (paintings in S Tommaso in Pelleria) and in 1675 again in Rome, working on the ceiling of Santa Croce dei Lucchesi (1675-77) and, more importantly, the gallery in the Palazzo Colonna, where they created a series of frescoes deeply influenced by Cortona and Veronese. In 1678 they returned to Lucca to paint a fresco of the Glory of the Trinity in the cathedral. Gherardi completed it alone following Coli's death in 1681.