Alessandro Turchi (1578 – 1649)

• Was an Italian painter of the early Baroque.
• Born and active mainly in Verona.
• Turchi trained with Felice Riccio in Verona.
• By 1603, he was working as independent painter.
• On leaving the school of Riccio, he went to Venice, where he worked for a time under Carlo Cagliari.
• By 1616, Turchi traveled to Rome and participated in the fresco decoration depicting the Gathering of Manna for the Sala Reggia of the Quirinal Palace for cardinal Scipione Borghese.
• He also went by the name Alessandro Veronese or the nickname L'Orbetto.

• He was much employed on cabinet pictures, representing historical subjects, which he frequently painted on black marble.

• Among his pupils, Giovanni Ceschini and Giovanni Battista Rossi.

• Documents from 1629, indicate Turchi was paid 110 scudi for painting St. Anthony of Padua for the Farnese Palace at Caprarola. 
• His sister married Giacinto Gimignani.
• In 1623, Turchi married Lucia San Giuliano.
• In 1637, with the sponsorship of the cardinal Francesco Barberini, he became Principe or director of the Accademia di San Luca.
• In 1638, he joined the papal guild of artists, called the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon.
• He died in Rome.
• Next