Donato Creti

Giampietro Zanotti, his contemporary and the historian of Bologna's painting academy, left a sharp sketch of Donato Creti. For his profession, Zanotti wrote, he studied endlessly, sighed and laboured, such was his desire for perfection and glory.

Creti was born in Cremona in 1671, into a family with painters on his mother's side, and grew up in Bologna. At first he taught himself by copying prints after Guido Reni and Simone Cantarini, two painters of the Bolognese school of the century before, then entered the studio of Lorenzo Pasinelli, where as the youngest pupil he was simply called the ragazzino, the little boy.

For years he lived and worked in the palace of Count Alessandro Fava, a Bolognese nobleman who gave him rooms, a studio and steady support and took many pictures in return, among them a scene of the young Alexander the Great threatened by his father, Philip of Macedon. Creti was a founding member of Bologna's Accademia Clementina, directed its studies several times, and in 1728 became its head, the principe. He died in Bologna on 29 January 1749.