Nuove ipotesi per i paesaggi secenteschi della loggia di Galatea in Villa Farnesina alla Lungara

A new documentary research, aimed at reconstructing the biographical profile and the career of the French landscape painter François Simonot (1660-1731), naturalized Roman and also known as ‘Monsù Francesco Borgognone’, has recently allowed, among other things, a full analysis of the artist’s professional network, following his year-by-year activity. Thus, the discovery of an untraced payment for restorations and paintings he executed in the Vatican Palaces, as part of a broader range of interventions coordinated by Carlo Maratti and architect Carlo Fontana for Pope Clement XI (1700-1721), has provided a clue for reconsidering the restoration works carried out, few years earlier, by Maratti and Fontana in the Villa Farnesina alla Lungara. In fact, a series of circumstances, together with some technical evidence, suggest that Monsù Francesco could have been the author of the until now anonymous 17th century landscapes painted in the ‘Loggia di Galatea’, which would then find a coherent chronology and a context of relevance.