The artist once famously quipped that patrons should only ever be allowed to dictate the measurements of a canvas. His subjects were self-selected-consistently esoteric and obscure narratives from history, mythology, and even witchcraft-demonstrating an avant-garde commitment to his artistic and personal freedom. Rosa devoted his mature career to projecting that persona through paintings unveiled at public exhibitions, campaigns of etchings, and the satirical poetry he wrote to rail against the world.

But the self-styled pictor succensor (fiery painter) wanted to be known as a history painter. Rosa garnered international fame for his vibrant battle scenes and landscapes that capture the wild, warm glow of the Campanian coast, a foil to the pastoral and classical models of his contemporaries. He remained there until his death in 1675. Rosa remained in Florence and the Tuscan countryside in the company of his learned friends from the Accademia dei Percossi (The Academy of the Beaten) until 1649 when he returned to Rome. The following year, Rosa accepted the invitation to the court of Cardinal Giovan Carlo de’ Medici (1611–1663) in Florence, but Rosa’s distaste for the dissimulation required to succeed at court painting led to an eventual parting from the Medici around 1645. With the encouragement of Giovanni Lanfranco, Rosa moved to Rome in 1635, where his dynamic landscapes, improvised theatrical troupe, and wild personality brought him notoriety perhaps going too far, the Neapolitan found himself in a heated feud with Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) in 1639.

Rosa was born in 1615 in Arenella, just outside of Naples, and received his early artistic training in the studio of his brother-in-law, Francesco Fracanzano, and later with Aniello Falcone and Jusepe de Ribera. The Artist: Painter, poet, draftsman, actor, and academician, Salvator Rosa was one of the most original artists and sparkling wits of seventeenth-century Italy.

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