Salvatore Rosa

Salvatore Rosa (1615-1673) was a Neapolitan poet and painter. At a very young age he came into contact with the workshop of Juan de Ribera, moving to Rome when he was twenty years old and playing an important role in the cultural life of the city. Famous for his polemic with Bernini, he became a well known actor and creator of farces and carnivalesque spectacles. Active for some years in Florence, Rosa exerted a strong influence on Neapolitan painting. In particular, landscapes, engravings and representations of battles constituted the most imitated aspects of his production. He also left his mark in Italian literature, with seven satires in tercets composed over thirty years and published posthumously around 1695.