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Ghinghi, Francesco
(b Florence, 1689; d Naples, 29 Dec 1766). Italian gem-engraver and medallist. He may have been descended from an old Sienese family who had settled in Florence in 1340. His uncle Vincenzo Ghinghi was also a gem-engraver. By 1704 he was studying drawing under Francesco Ciaminghi (d 1736) and modelling with the sculptor Giovanni Battista Foggini. He was taught gem-engraving with the assistance of Ferdinando de’ Medici, and acquired a position in the Medici court as gem-engraver to the Grand Duke Cosimo III, establishing his reputation with a chalcedony cameo portrait of his patron (untraced). Among other portraits were those of the collector Baron Philipp von Stosch (c. 1717; Berlin, Antikenmus.) and of Cosimo’s sons Ferdinando de’ Medici and Gian Gastone de’ Medici (untraced). For the Electress Palatine Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici he cut cameos of Hadrian and Trajan in large violet sapphires, and for Cardinal Gualtieri a copy of the Venus de’ Medici (Florence, Uffizi) in an amethyst (untraced), which later passed to Frederick-Augustus III, Elector of Saxony (later Frederick-Augustus I, King of Saxony). Ghinghi was also the master of Felix Bernabé. On the death of the last Medici, Gian Gastone, in 1737, and through the intervention of the 3rd Conde de Montemar (1671–1747), another patron, he moved to Naples in the employ of Charles VII (later Charles III of Spain). Charles, of whom he produced a chalcedony cameo portrait (untraced), appointed him director of the Real Laboratorio delle Pietre Dure, a post he retained until the end of his life. Several of his works were reproduced in the cast collection of James Tassie (Edinburgh, N.P.G., and St Petersburg, Hermitage).
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