Fra Galgario

Who was Fra Galgario?

Frá Galgario, born Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi, and also called Fra Vittore del Galgario, was an Italian painter, mainly active in Bergamo as a portraitist during the Rococo or late-Baroque period.

He was born in Bergamo to an artist father. Initially he entered the studio of Giacomo Cotta, then Bartolomeo Bianchi, and finally the studio of Sebastiano Bombelli in Venice of the 1690s. He also reported trained with the German portrait artist Salomon Adler in Milan.

In 1702, he entered the religious life in the Order of the Minims of the Monastery of Galgario, in Bergamo. He assumed the name of the saint for whom the monastery is named. He was elected a member of the Milanese Accademia Clementina in 1717.

He is said to blend the attention to colorism and glamour that captivates Renaissance-Baroque portraiture of Venice, with the realism of Milanese art such as that of Moroni.