Francesco Ruschi

Francesco Ruschi was a Roman by birth who made his name in Venice. Born in Rome around 1610, he trained in the orbit of Pietro da Cortona, the painter who defined the grand, theatrical Baroque of the popes' city, then carried that manner north and settled in Venice while still young.

There his Roman drama met Venetian colour. He painted altarpieces for the city's churches and, being a lettered man, fell in with Giovanni Francesco Loredan, founder of a famous Venetian literary academy, designing the engraved title pages for several of his books. His most lasting mark, though, may be a pupil. He taught the young Antonio Zanchi, who grew into one of the leading dark, dramatic painters of the next Venetian generation.

In 1656 Ruschi moved to the mainland town of Treviso, and he died there in 1661.