Francesco Manno (Palermo, 1752 Rome, 1831), The Meeting of Christ and Veronica

Francesco Manno (Palermo, 1752 Rome, 1831) The Meeting of Christ and Veronica Last quarter of the 18th century Oil on canvas, 60 x 33 cm With frame, 75 x 48 cm Son of Girolamo and Petronilla Salsella, Francesco Manno dedicated himself first to goldsmithing and then to painting, following the example of his brothers Vincenzo and Antonio, both academics of San Luca. Francesco Manno's early works include a Portrait of Ferdinand of Bourbon - whose location is currently unknown but which until 1934 was kept in the National Gallery of Palermo - and a sketch of the Triumph of Saint Joseph, now in the Regional Gallery of Sicily, in Palazzo Abatellis. Around 1786, Manno arrived in Rome and worked first with Pompeo Batoni, by whom he was fascinated and influenced, which is especially noticeable in his early works; then, in 1787, he moved to the studio of the Spanish painter Francisco Preciado de la Vega, who was a student of Sebastiano Conca. Manno quickly became known as a prolific, precise and attentive artist, and he was not lacking in honors and commissions. He was one of the favorite artists for canonization ceremonies and also worked for Roman churches of the Orthodox rite. He never forgot his native land, and many churches and museums in Sicily today own his works. In Rome, Manno had the opportunity to compare himself directly with the works of Carlo Maratta, a painter of Ancona origins who was mainly active in Rome between the second half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century. Maratta is considered one of the most important figures in the pictorial panorama of 17th-century Italy: in a period marked by the contrast between classicism and the Baroque, he was able to combine the two trends, starting from the classicism of Raphael and incorporating a Baroque free of rhetorical excesses (P. Zampetti, Pittura nelle Marche, 1991). Maratti's painting was celebrated by Giovan Pietro Bellori, who praised its grace and purity of composition, considering him the only living artist worthy of appearing in his Lives of the painters, sculptors and architects moderni, of 1672 (A. Agresti, Carlo Maratta. Heritage and evolutions of Roman Classicism, 2022). Mengs said of him: "He sustained painting in Rome so that it would not precipitate as elsewhere." Subsequently, in the neoclassical period, severe judgments and praises alternated, but on the whole his art was much criticized: the same fate also befell the vast array of his students who, although responsible for works of merit, did not easily meet the favor of nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics (S. Roettgen, Students, followers, imitators and adversaries: the Marattesque imprint in eighteenth-century painting, 2016). Maratta's pictorial production was a great source of inspiration for the Palermo artist: this is clearly visible in a work such as this Meeting of Christ with Veronica, within which both the intense and vivid colors and the brushstrokes of the mature works of the painter from the Marche region are taken up: the bright colors of Manno's painting recall the tones of The Virgin Appears to Saint Philip Neri in Palazzo Pitti or the Visitation to the Sepulcher of the Virgin with the Three Marys in the Mainetti collection in Rome. The iconography of the Meeting of Christ and Veronica is also taken up from Maratta's works; this theme had been investigated by the famous exponent of the Roman 17th century on various occasions: suffice it to mention the painting currently at the Museo di Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia or that of the church of Santa Maria del Suffragio in Piansano, near Viterbo.