Aureliano Milani

1675 – 1749

Italian painter, draughtsman and engraver. He was distantly related to the Carracci family and zealous to revive their style for his generation of Bolognese artists. As a young artist, trained briefly by his uncle Giulio Cesare Milani and then by Lorenzo Pasinelli and Cesare Gennari, he undertook a long and diligent study of the celebrated fresco cycles by the Carracci in the Palazzo Magnani and the Palazzo Fava in Bologna. He was given free access to the Fava palace, and financial assistance, by Count Alessandro Fava. Milani also made copies, in both drawing and painting, of major pictures by the Carracci in Bologna and emulated the vigorous rhythmic articulation of musculature and contour that they used to convey the powerful energy of the male figure in movement. In 1719 he moved to Rome where he worked for the remainder of his career, decorating churches and undertaking several important decorative projects, such as a fresco cycle of the 'Story of Hercules' in the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj (1732). Milani had perhaps a better contemporary reputation as a draughtsman than as a painter.

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