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Redi, Tommaso
(b Florence, 22 Dec 1665; d Florence, 10 Oct 1726). Italian painter. The son of Lorenzo Redi, an employee of the Medici court, he was apprenticed at 18 years of age to Anton Domenico Gabbiani, the painter who was most favoured by Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and by the Florentine nobility. In Gabbiani’s studio, drawing and the study of anatomy were of utmost importance. A letter of 6 October 1690 from Redi to Gabbiani indicates that Redi was in Rome from that date, with a stipend from Cosimo III, for further training under Maratti and Ciro Ferri. Redi and his fellow students Benedetto Luti and Antonio Balestra drew together every day, and then took the results to Maratti for his criticism. Redi returned to Florence around 1700 at Cosimo III’s request and worked there for the rest of his life. He made contact with Peter the Great, Tsar and Emperor of Russia, who in 1716 sent four young artists from Moscow to study painting with Redi in Florence, and then invited him to become director of the newly founded Academy of Fine Arts in Moscow, though Redi declined the offer.
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