Andrea Pozzo (1642–1709)

• Was an Italian Jesuit brother, Baroque painter, and architect.
• Born in Trento, he studied Humanities at the local Jesuit High School.

• Later he traveled to Como and Milan. 

• On 25 December 1665, he entered the Jesuit Order as a lay brother.

• In 1668, he was assigned to the Casa Professa of San Fidele in Milan.

• He continued artistic training in Genoa and Venice.

• He was frequently employed by the Jesuits to decorate churches.

• In 1681, Pozzo was called to Rome by Giovanni Paolo Oliva, Superior General of the Jesuits.

• Among others, Pozzo worked for Livio Odescalchi, the powerful nephew of the pope, Innocent XI.

• In 1695 he was given a commission, after winning a competition against Sebastiano Cipriani and Giovanni Battista Origone, for an altar in the St. Ignatius chapel in the left transept of the Church of the Gesù.

• Meanwhile he continued painting frescoes and illusory domes in Turin, Mondovì, Modena, Montepulciano and Arezzo.

• In 1699 he delivered the plans for the Jesuit Collegium Ragusinum in the Republic of Ragusa, now Dubrovnik.

• Pozzo died in Vienna in 1709 at a moment when he intended to return to Italy to design a new Jesuit church in Venice.

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