Francesco Brizio


Francesco Brizio was an Italian painter and engraver of the Bolognese School, active in the early-Baroque.
It appears Cesare Malvasia confused him with il Nosadella or Giovanni Francesco Bezzi, who lived and was active only in the 16th century. Brizio was born in Bologna. He was initially a pupil of Bartolommeo Passarotti, but then became a pupil under Agostino and Ludovico Carracci. He helped paint, along with Lucio Massari and Leonello Spada, stories of Torquato Tasso's epic in the loggias of the Palazzo Bentivoglio. He also frescoed a ceiling for the signori Conti Boschetti in Modena and in the Oratorio della SS Trinità in Pieve di Cento. In Bologna, he painted a Coronation of the Madonna del Borgo for the church of San Petronio. He also frescoed in the cloister of San Michele in Bosco. His son Filippo became a pupil of Guido Reni. Another pupil was Domenico Ambrogi.
In engraving he was instructed by Agostino Carracci, and he is said to have forwarded some of the plates of that master. He died at Bologna. Among his works as an engraver: