Stefano della Bella

Stefano Della Bella
Portrait by Carlo Dolci
Born	18 May 1610 Florence, Italy
Died	12 July 1664 Florence, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Known for	Engraver
Movement	Baroque

Stefano della Bella (18 May 1610 – 12 July 1664) was an Italian draughtsman and printmaker known for etchings of a great variety of subjects, including military and court scenes, landscapes, and lively genre scenes. He left 1052 prints, and several thousand drawings, but only one known painting. He was born and died in Florence, Italy.

He was born at Florence to a family of artists, and was apprenticed to a goldsmith, but became an engraver working briefly under Orazio Vanni and then Cesare Dandini. He studied etching under Remigio Cantagallina, who had also been the instructor of Jacques Callot, who had lived in Florence 1612-1621, and his early prints are very similar to those of Callot. The patronage of the Medicis enabled della Bella to live and study for six years in Rome, living in the Medici palace, and producing vedute and drawings of antiquities as well as crowded images of public occasions in a series of sketchbooks, many of which were later turned into prints. He also made trips to Florence to record and assist the court festivities of the Medici. In this period his style developed from Mannerist to Baroque.

In Rome, he created a series of six prints forming a long, 2.5-meter panel, showing the Polish Ambassador’s Ceremonial Entry into Rome in 1633. He also created a number of prints of views of Rome.

Entry of the Polish Ambassador to Rome, 1633

Polish horseman etching

In 1639 he went to Paris, introduced by the Tuscan ambassador, Alessandro del Nero, and where he lived until 1650, adapting his style to French taste, as in his series updating the Northern theme of the taking by Death of various individuals. He was also influenced by Rembrandt and other Dutch printmakers, and made trips to Holland and North Africa. The majority of his prints date from the years in Paris; he had arrived four years after the death of Callot, and was already known to important French publishers. In 1641 Cardinal Richelieu sent him to Arras to make drawings for prints of the siege and taking of that town by the royal army, and in 1644 Cardinal Mazarin commissioned four sets of educational playing cards for the young Louis XIV. His ornament prints were very innovative, seeming to look forward to the Rococo.

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