Francesco Furini

Francesco Furini (c. 1600 (or 1603) – August 19, 1646) was an Italian Baroque painter of Florence. His early training was by Matteo Rosselli (whose other pupils include Lorenzo Lippi and Baldassare Franceschini), though Furini is also described as influenced by Domenico Passignano and Giovanni Biliverti (Cantelli 1972). He befriended Giovanni da San Giovanni. Traveling to Rome in 1619, he also would have been exposed to the influence of Caravaggio and his followers. Among his pupils are Simone Pignoni (1611-98)[1] and Giovanni Battista Galestruzzi. At the age of forty, he became a priest for the parish of Sant'Ansano in Mugello. Furini's work reflects the tension faced by the conservative, mannerist style of Florence when confronting then novel Baroque styles. He is a painter of biblical and mythological set-pieces with a strong use of the misty sfumato technique. In the 1630s, when he became a priest, his style paralleled that of Guido Reni.