Guido Ubaldo Abbatini

1602 – 1656

Italian painter and mosaicist. He trained in the Roman studio of Cavaliere d'Arpino. He is principally known for executing fresco decorations in several chapels in Rome to designs by Bernini. Independent commissions, such as the frescoes depicting the Life of Charlemagne (1635-37; Rome, Vatican, Sala di Carlo Magno), reveal, however, that despite his collaboration with Bernini and later with Cortona, his preference was for a restrained classical style, close to that of more conservative contemporaries such as Andrea Camassei and Giovanni Francesco Romanelli. He assisted Bernini with the vault of the Raimondi Chapel in San Pietro in Montorio (1642-44) and that of the Pio Chapel in Sant'Agostino (1644-45). He also painted the vision of clouds and angels in the vault above Bernini's marble group of St Teresa in Ecstasy (c. 1647; Rome, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Cornaro Chapel). In 1650 he executed independently the decorative frescoes on the ceiling and side walls of the sacristy of Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome. He also executed mosaics in St Peter's, after his own designs and those of Cortona (e.g. 1654-56; chapel of San Sebastiano), as well as carrying out many modest artistic chores in St Peter's and the Vatican during Urban VIII's papacy, from gilding and marbling to painting topographical views.

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