Art by Francesco Albani

Francesco Albani or Albano (March 17 or August 17, 1578–October 4, 1660) was an Italian Baroque painter.
Born at Bologna, his father was a silk merchant who intended to instruct his son in the same trade; but by age twelve, Albani became an apprentice under the competent mannerist painter Denis Calvaert, where he met Guido Reni. Soon he followed Reni to the so-called \"Academy\" run by the Carracci family: Annibale, Agostino, and Ludovico. This studio fostered the careers of many painters of the Bolognese school, including Domenichino, Massari, Viola, Lanfranco, Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, Pietro Faccini, Remigio Cantagallina, and Reni.
Albani never acquired the monumentality or tenebrism that was quaking the contemporary world of painters, and in fact, is derided often for his lyric, cherubim-filled sweetness, which often has not yet shaken the mannerist elegance. While Albani\'s thematic would have appealed to Poussin, he lacked the Frenchman\'s muscular drama. His style sometimes appears to befit the decorative Rococo more than of his time.