Francesco Battaglioli (Modena, 1725 – Venice, 1796) was an Italian
painter, known as painter of veduta and capriccios based on the scenery of
Venice and the Venetian mainland (
Brescia and
Treviso).
Some of his veduta are of
Aranjuez in Spain,[1] where he went to paint scenery sets for the
Reales Coliseos theater held in the
Palacio Real de Aranjuez for the delight of
Ferdinand VI. It is believed they were a set of at least four, of which two are exhibited at the
Prado Museum in Madrid.[2] Here he also worked with
Farinelli in painting stage sets for
Pietro Metastasio's operas. From that series four of them are preserved at the
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (La Nitteti, Didone Abbandonata, Armida Placata Second Act, scene VII, and Knight fighting dragons in a forest),[3] another at the Prado (Armida Placata First Act, scene IV).[4] Battaglioli's veduta were engraved by
Francisco Zucchi and used to illustrate
Baldassare Camillo Zamboni's Memorie intorno alle pubbliche fabbriche (1778).
Torrione, Margarita, Francesco Battaglioli. Escenografías para el Real Teatro del Buen Retiro (exhibition catalogue), Madrid, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Teatro de la Zarzuela, INAEM, 2013.
Torrione, Margarita, Nueve óleos de Francesco Battaglioli para el Coliseo del Buen Retiro. (La ópera en el reinado de Fernando VI: último relumbrón de la Corte Barroca.), in J. Martínez Millán, C. Camarero Bullón, M. Luzzi Traficante (coords.), La corte de los Borbones: crisis del modelo cortesano, Madrid, Ed. Polifemo, 2013, vol. 3, pp. 1733–1777.
TORRIONE, Margarita, "La sociedad de Corte y el ritual de la ópera", in Fernando VI y Bárbara de Braganza. Un reinado bajo el signo de la paz : 1746-1759, exhibition catalogue, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (RABASF), Madrid, 2002, pp. 165–195.
ISBN84-369-3632-9.
TORRIONE, Margarita, "Decorados teatrales para el Coliseo del Buen Retiro. Cuatro óleos de Francesco Battaglioli", Reales Sitios (Revista del Patrimonio Nacional), n° 143, 2000, pp. 40–51.
TORRIONE, Margarita, «El Real Coliseo del Buen Retiro: memoria de una arquitectura desaparecida», in TORRIONE, Margarita (dir.), España festejante. El Siglo XVIII, Málaga, CEDMA, 2000, pp. 295–322.
ISBN84-7785-370-3.
TORRIONE, Margarita, Crónica festiva de dos reinados en la Gaceta de Madrid : 1700-1759, Paris, Ophrys, 1998.
ISBN2-7080-0861-7.
J.G. Links. Canaletto and his Patrons, Paul Elek Ltd, London (1977). pp. 99–100.