Cesari, Giuseppe

Cesari, Giuseppe (Cavaliere d'Arpino), an eminent Italian painter, was born in 1560 at the castle of Arpino, in the kingdom of Naples. At the age of thirteen he went to Rome for employment, where he offered his services to prepare the palettes and colors of the artists who were then employed in the Vatican under Gregory XIII. He had been here but a short time when he sketched several pictures on the wall which attracted the attention of the pope, and the latter placed him in the school of Niccolo Circignani. Eventually he was considered the most distinguished painter in Rome, where there are many of his works, the principal being the cupola of San Prassede, representing The Ascension, with the Virgin and the Apostles; also, in San Gio. Grisognomo, The Assumption of the Virgin. He died at Rome in 1640.