Pier Francesco Mola
Italian,
(1612–1666)
Pier Francesco Mola, called Il Ticinese was an Italian painter of the High Baroque, mainly active around Rome. Mola was born at Coldrerio (now in Ticino, Switzerland). At the age of four, he moved to Rome with his father Giovanni Battista Mola, a painter. With the exception of the years 1633–40 and 1641–47, during which he resided in Venice and Bologna, respectively, he lived for the rest of his life in Rome. His early training was with the late mannerist painter Cavalier d'Arpino, and he worked under the classicizing Francesco Albani. With his looser style and handling, more naturalistic palette, and interest in exploring landscape elements, Mola differs from the prevailing, highly-theoretical classicism of leading 17th-century Roman painters.