(b Giovinazzo, 1613; d Bitonto, 12 Sept 1678). Italian painter and architect. He was the son of a painter, Massenzio Rosa. He moved to Bitonto in his early years, and it seems likely that he trained there with an artist working in a late Mannerist style. He was encouraged by the Bishop of Bitonto, Fabrizio Carafa, to move to Naples, where he spent the years 1636–41 in the workshop of Massimo Stanzione (de Dominici). He may also have visited Rome in this period: his luminous and painterly surfaces suggest a response to the art of Guercino. His only documented work in Naples is the Christ Healing the Epileptic, painted for the convent of S Maria della Sapienza, where the abbess was Isabella, another member of the noble Carafa family. This simple composition, with the figures arranged in a clearly defined space parallel to the picture plane, remains tied to late 16th-century religious art in Naples. It has a Counter-Reformation clarity and directness, although enriched by a more characteristically Baroque brilliance of colour and dramatic contrast of light and shade. De Dominici also ascribes to Rosa three paintings in SS Apostoli, Naples, attributions that Wiedmann (see 1984–5 exh. cat.) tends to accept, particularly that of St Ivo Receiving Supplicants. By 1643 Rosa had left Naples, and for the next 30 years he worked in Apulia, where his large workshop dominated the decoration of local churches. Among his most distinguished works were the decoration of the vaults of S Nicola, Bari (1661), and S Maria del Carmine (1660–64), in Bitonto. He was important in spreading an awareness of Neapolitan painting, perhaps particularly that of Pacecco, to the region; Francesco Antonio Altobello was his pupil. He was also involved in architectural projects, and was responsible for the design (1666) of his own burial chapel in the church of the Crocefisso, Bitonto.

• Rosa, Carlo
  • Altobello, Francesco Antonio