Italian painter (Bologna 1575 - 1642). Calvaert's pupil, he then assisted to the Carracci's Academy; he sojourned in Rome in two different time spans (1600-1603 and 1607-1614) and he stayed briefly e in Naples, but he lived in Bologna for the rest of his life. In the first works his art resents every now and then of the late Emilian mannerism, of the Carracci's style and even of an academic likeness to Caravaggio; afterwards, coming in contact with the Roman classical currents, he formed a personal style, turned to produce images that often were pathetic, rich of ideal beauty and permeated of a subtle melancholy. In their quest for purity and immaterial elegance, they respond to the religious conception of that epoch, somewhat sentimental and languid. His style, already shaped in the Roman frescoes in S. Gregorio al Celio (1608-1609) and in the Quirinal's Chapel (1610), acquires a greater classicist idealization in the Sansone vittorioso (Victorious Samson) , in the Strage degli Innocenti (Massacre of the Innocents) , both in Bologna, in the famous fresco of the Aurora (Rome, Palazzo Rospigliosi) and in the four Fatiche d'Ercole (Hercules' labours) (Louvre), the most beautiful of which is Nesso e Deianira . Another quite valuable mythological painting belongs to the same period that is, Atalanta e Ippomene (Naples). Very famous and admired all through the entire nineteenth century, were his paintings with religious subjects: the numerous Madonne , his Crocifissi (Crucifixes) , the S. Michele Arcangelo (St. Michael Archangel) (Rome, Church of the Capuchins - iter 3), and many others spread in Europe's museums. In his last years Reni tones down his drawing increasingly, he lightens his touch and makes uses of clearer colours with silvery shadings, to express an art that, turning towards the research of an immaterial purity, becomes more inner and lyrical, reaching inflection of high poetry. The Lucrezia , the Fanciulla con la corona (Child with crown) , Cleopatra , Cristo alla colonna (Christ tied to the column) (Bologna) are among the most beautiful examples of this last phase of his activity. One of the most notable personalities of the seventeenth century Italian painting, Reni was at times highly appreciated, at times undervalued by the critics, that however, in these last years have manifested the tendency to give a more comprehensive explanation to the real meaning of his art. He had a solid group of immediate followers, and Poussin, in his youth, also looked to him with interest; his influence was felt mostly in the Eighteenth century, and more in classical France than in Italy.