ABSTRACT
Luigi Crespi, the son of the more gifted painter Giuseppe Maria Crespi, was similarly drawn to a career in art and had some success as a portraitist, being admitted to art academies in Florence and Venice. Crespi also deviated from Malvasia’s biographical precedent by intentionally writing in a more naturalistic, straightforward manner, with none of the poetic or rhetorical embellishments that he felt were tedious digressions from the narration of an artist’s life. Antonia Pinelli, following in the footsteps of her near-contemporary in Bologna, Lavinia Fontana, painted complex narrative scenes for church altarpieces. Unlike Malvasia, Crespi gives Pinelli a distinct identity by providing her with a separate biographical entry. One other altarpiece is noted by Crespi, but he is unable to mention other works by the artist since, as he says, they were for private individuals. Ghirardi notes that a badly damaged painting held in the conservatory of the Baraccano may represent another documented self-portrait by the artist.
