Ciro Ferri (Rome 1634 - Rome 1689)

The painter and sculptor Ciro Ferri was born in Rome in 1634 and trained in the studio of Pietro da Cortona, becoming one of his most gifted pupils. Throughout his career, Ferri followed the master’s work closely, carrying on the unmistakable “Neo-Venetian” style popular in Rome in the 1640s.
Ferri first worked under Cortona on the gallery of Palazzo del Quirinale (1656-59) and later collaborated with him in the decoration of Palazzo Pitti in Florence (1659-65), where he completed the frescoes in the Apollo Room and painted the whole of the Saturn Room. When Cortona died in 1669, Ferri took over the commission to prepare the cartoons for the mosaics in the right aisle of St. Peter’s and completed the paintings in the Gavotti chapel in the Church of San Nicola da Tolentino. In 1670, he began the painting of the cupola of Sant’Agnese in Agone, in a style reminiscent of Giovanni Lanfranco’s work in Sant’Andrea della Valle (1623-28); it was completed by his pupil Sebastiano Corbellini in 1693. From 1675 to 1680, assisted by Giovan Francesco Grimaldi, he frescoed Villa Falconieri at Frascati with allegories of the seasons. He died in Rome in 1689.