RENI, Guido, Oda Wire, Italian painter: b. Bologna, Nov. 1575; d. there, 18 Aug. 1642. His first instruction was received in Calvaert's celebrated school at Bologna where he studied the works of Albrecht Diirer. When the school of the Caracci, at Bologna, began to eclipse that of Calvaert, Guido, then 20, joined it. He visited Rome for the first time in 1602, with two of his fellow students, Domenichino and Albano. He made a second visit in 1605 and Cardinal Borgfiese employed him to paint a 'Crucifixion of Saint Peter) (now in the Vati can) for the church Delle Tre Fontane. The powerful manner of this picture, and several others of the same period, which manner Guido did not, however, long retain, increased his fame; and at the cardinal's request, he com pleted the on the ceiling of the Casino in the Rospigliosi Palace. This picture has be come well known and popular from the engrav ings of it by R. Morghen, J. Burger and others. Paul V at that time employed Guido to decorate a chapel on Monte Cavallo, with scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary. Guido accom plished this work to the satisfaction of the Pope, and was next entrusted with the painting of the memorial chapel in Santa Maria Mag giore. To this period his (Fortuna.) and the portraits of Sixtus V and Cardinal Spada may be assigned. His paintings are very unequal in style and character, but generally are con sidered as belonging to three different manners and periods. The first comprises those pictures which resemble the manner of the Caracci, and particularly that of Caravaggio. Faces and forms, stately and grandiose, deep shadows, narrow and intense lights, high coloring, in short, an effort after great effect, distinguish his works of this first period. The second manner is completely opposed to the first and shows the painter at his best, being sweet, natural and unstrained. Its principal features are tender coloring, little shade, an agreeable, though often too dainty, airy and sentimental, treatment of the subject, constituting a style quite peculiar to Guido. His forms
the transition from the first to the second style of his paintings. A third period commences at the time when Guido worked with too much haste and had become more avaricious of money than of fame. His coloring has turned to a greenish and altogether unnatural grayness, and the general treatment is careless and weak. During the government of Pope Urban VII Guido quarreled with his treasurer, Cardinal Spinola, respecting the price of a picture, and returned to Bologna. There he had already executed his (Saints Peter and Paul) for the house of Zampiere, and the 'Murder of the In nocents) for the Dominican church, and was on the point of embellishing the chapel of the saints with his pictures when he was called back to Rome, loaded with honors, and received by the Pope himself most graciously. But he soon ex perienced new difficulties, and in 1622 accepted an invitation to go to Naples. Believing him self unsafe at this place, on account of the hatred of the Neapolitan artists for foreign painters, he returned once more to his native city, never to quit it again. At Bologna he painted two beautiful pictures for the church Dei Mendicanti, an (Assumption) for Genoa, and a number of others for his native city and other places, particularly for Rome. There is also a (Magdalen) by this artist in Chiswick House, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, of which there is an engraving by Sir Robert Strange. Equally celebrated is a painting of (Lot and his Daughters,' in the Hampton Court collection, also engraved. In the gallery of the Louvre are several, of which the finest is the (Centaur Nessus carrying off Dejanira.> In the Dresden Gallery is his Christ Wearing the Crown of Thorns.) Consult Bolognini-Amorini, 'Vita del celebre pittore Guido RenP (1839); Dohme, (Kunst and Kimstler Italian' (Vol. II, 1879) ; 'Masters in Art' (Vol. IV, 1903) ; Von Boehm, (Guido RenP (in •Kfinstler-Mono graphien,) 1910).