Page:Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters.djvu/181

 150 RONCALU—ROSA. cupola and treasury of the Santa Gasa of Loreto, for which he received 18,000 scndi; the Judgment of Solomon in Casa Galli, Osimo; the Death of Ananias in Santa Maria degli Angeli, at Rome, executed in mosaic in St. Peter's ; and in St John Lateran, the Baptism of Gonstantine. In San QioYanni Decollate, the Visitation ; and in Sant' Andrea della Valle, St. Michael defeating the rebel Angels. Roncalli excelled in landscape backgrounds. (Baglione, Lanzi,) RONDANI, Francbsco Mabia, h, at Parma, d. before 1548. Lombard School. A scholar and close imitator of Gorreggio, whom he assisted in the cupola of San Giovanni of Parma. Rondani generally confined himself to compositions with few figures, and he is accused of being too minute in his accessories. In the church of the Eremitani, at Parma, is the Virgin with St. Augustine and St Jerome, his master-piece. His pictures are rare in collections. In the Berlin Gallery are two small pieces. {Lanzi,) RONDINELLO, Niccolo, h, about 1460. Roman or Bolognese School. He was the scholar, imitator, and as- sistant of Gio. Bellini. Vasari says that Bellini employed Rondinello in aU his works. His works are chiefly in the churches of Ravenna : his draw- ing is dry and formal ; his heads are less select than those of Bellini, and his colouring is less vivid. {Lanzi.) ROSA, Salvatob, b. at Borgo di Renella, July 21, 1615, d, at Rome, March 15, 1673. He studied first with Cicdo Fracanzano, a relative ; then under Spagnoletto; and afterwards with Aniello Falcone, the battle.painter : he settled in Rome when only twenty- three years of age. He painted his- tory, genre^ portraits, and landscapes; he was a poet, a satirist, and also a musician. His landscapes, in which he was great, have much resemblance in style to those of Gaspar Penssin, his contemporary; but Salvator dis- plays the strong naturalist taste of Spagnoletto in all his works. Of his historical works, some are impassioned and characteristic in style: the Con- spiracy of Gatiline, in the Pitti Palace, is an example; the Belisarius is an- other striking instance ; the Death of Regulus, long in the Colonna Palace, at Rome, is of a more wild and naturalist character ; but in some pictures of this class, generally inferior to his land- scapes and portraits, Salvator seems only to have followed academic rules, which, accordingly, has somewhat divested them both of interest and importance. He was greatly distin- guished as a portrait-painter, the same rude energy characterising his single figures which so peculiarly distin- guishes his landscapes and ordinary figure groups. Eugler instances the Man in Armour, in the Pitti Palace, as comparable with Rembrandt Salvator produced also some excellent and animated battle-pieces, in the style of Falcone; but it is as a landscape- painter that his powers are seen to their best advantage — scenes of ragged grandeur, on the coast or inland, savage wildness or desolation, the haunts of banditti, the hermit's re- treat, rocky defiles, gloomy forests, are treated by him with a peculiar power and originality : the Woodman, in the National Gallery, is an admirable ex- ample of this class of his works. He introduced into these subjects figiures of wandering soldiers, travellers, shep- herds, or banditti, which, though often repeated, are always admirable for their spirit and appropriate treatment ; they greatly assist the general efifect from their perfect harmony with the scene, adding to the impression of loneliness, desolation, or danger. His colouring is objectionable, it is too uniformly a sandy or yellow gray. He