( fl Naples, 1709–43). Italian painter. He was a pupil of Paolo de Matteis in Naples and spent a period—the precise dates of which are not known—in Rome, where he was influenced by the work of Carlo Maratti. In 1709 and 1710 he exhibited a series of religious works and landscapes in the festivities of the Holy Sacrament and Corpus Domini in Naples, and from this period probably date his mysterious landscapes which herald those of Alessandro Magnasco, such as the Landscape with the Tombs of the Horatii and the Curiatii and the Southern Landscape (both ex-Niedersächs. Landesmus., Hannover). In 1713 he painted his most important works, two altarpieces depicting Tobias and the Angel and the Conversion of St Dismas (Naples, S Giorgio Maggiore), which combine Baroque theatricality with refined and brilliant colour in a style close to that of Genoese painters whose work could be seen in Naples, such as Gregorio de’ Ferrari. Peresi later developed the decorative element in his painting, and among his mature works, the two charming roundels of the Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and the Mystic Marriage of St Catherine (1722; Benevento, Mus. Sannio) could properly be described as Rococo. His work in Naples included a number of large altarpieces, such as the Holy Family with Saints for the church of SS Andrea e Mario a Nilo (in situ). He also undertook secular works, such as the Triumph of the Emperor Charles VI (1724; untraced; see Spinosa, i, p. 298), and decorated bookbindings with four capriccios celebrating the victories of the Emperor and Prince Eugene of Savoy over the Turks (Vienna, Österreich. Nbib.).