The Italian painter Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639-1709) is known for the drama of his illusionistic ceiling paintings in fresco and the brilliance of his color harmonies in oils.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Baciccio, was born in Genoa and was baptized on May 10, 1639. When he was 18 years old, his entire family died of the plague. Soon afterward he left for Rome, where he spent the rest of his life. There he met Gian Lorenzo Bernini, with whose help Baciccio's career flourished. He received many commissions to execute frescoes in the churches of the papal city and mythologies in its palaces. "He painted all the cardinals," Lione Pascoli wrote in 1730, "all the important people of his day who came to Rome, and the seven popes who reigned from Alexander VII to Clement XI."

In 1674 Baciccio was president of the painters' guild, the Academy of St. Luke. After Bernini's death in...