(bapt Bologna, 1 Sept 1549; d Bologna, 4 Oct 1612). Italian painter. His early training was influenced by Bagnacavallo and Venetian painters. His earliest known work, the altarpiece of St Bartholomew Worshipping the Virgin (1570–75; Bologna, S Bartolomeo), is in a Mannerist style, with clear references to the work of Bartolomeo Passarotti, Lorenzo Sabatini and Orazio Samacchini. The austerity of the early Counter-Reformation, introduced in Bologna by Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti, is reflected in the slightly later Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saints (Bologna, Santa Trinità). From c. 1576 he collaborated with Giovanni Battista Fiorini (d after 1599) on such projects as the frescoes of Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter (1579; Bologna, Metropolitana S Pietro) and the Coronation of the Virgin (1588; Bologna, S Michele in Bosco). Also with Fiorini he painted numerous altarpieces for churches in Bologna, including the Birth of the Virgin (1577–82; S Giovanni in Monte), the Miraculous Procession of St Gregory the Great (1580; S Maria del Baraccano), the Mass of St Gregory the Great (c. 1580; S Maria dei Servi) and the Deposition with SS Benedict and Francis of Paola (S Benedetto) documented in 1593. These altarpieces have a luminosity derived from Prospero Fontana and also reflect Tuscan and Roman art. The partnership was interrupted in 1586 when Aretusi was called to Parma to make a copy of Correggio’s fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin for the apse of S Giovanni Evangelista. The contract indicates that he was not the son of the painter Pellegrino Aretusi (1465–1523). He was also known as a portrait painter (e.g. the portraits of Paolo Ricci and Pomponio Torelli; both Parma, G.N.). For Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, he painted portraits of women on small copperplates (untraced).

• Aretusi, Cesare
  • Correggio, §1(ii)(a): Frescoes, 1520 and after