Passeri, Andrea, an Italian painter of Como, flourished about 1505. In the cathedral of his native city is a picture of The Virgin surrounded bg the Apos- tles, in which the composition and expression of the heads are good ; but Lanzi says there is a dryness in the hands, with the use of gilding, unworthy of the age in which Passeri painted. See Spooner, Biog. Hist, oj' the Pine Arts, ii, 6G1.
Passeri, Giovanni Battista, a distinguished painter and ecclesiastic, is author of one of the best collections of biographies of Italian artists. He was born at Kome about 1610. He received a good educa- tion, and, according to his own account, did not take up painting until comparatively late. He was first en- gaged in the capacity of a painter in 1635 by Canini, in the Villa Aldobrandini, at Frascati, where he contracted an intimate friendship with Domenichino, then return- ed from Naples. \V^hen Domenichino died in Naples, in 1641, Passeri was president of the Academy of St. Luke, and he read a funeral oration on him, and paint- ed a portrait of him, now in the gallery Degli UfHzi, at Florence. At the close of his life Passeri entered into holy orders, and obtained in 1675 a benefice in the col- lege of Santa Maria, in Via Lata. He died in 1679. Passeri is one of the best of the Italian historians of art; his theoretical knowledge was good, and his state- ments are believed to be very correct. The circum- stance of his book lying for nearly a century unnoticed, or rather unpublished, was owing to its unfinished state and the severity of many of his remarks, especially on Bernini. It was first published in Kome by an anony- mous editor (supposed to be Bottari, editor of the Let- tere Pittoriche) in 1772, with some omissions, under the title, Vite de Pittori, Scultori, ed A rchitetti che anno la- vorato in Roma, morti dul 1641 Jino at 1673, di O'iam- battista Passe7'i, Pittore e Poe.ta (492 pp. 4to), thus con- stituting a continuation to the work of Baglione. It contains thirty-six lives, from Domenichino to Salvator Kosa inclusive. There is only one public picture by Passeri in Kome, a Crucijixion, between two saints, in
the church of San Giovanni della Malva. See English Cyclop, s. v. ; Spooner, Biog. IJist. of the Fine A rts, ii, 661.
Passeri, Giuseppe, a nephew of the preceding, was btirn at Kome in 1654. According to Pascoli, he was a scholar of Carlo iMarafti, and one of the most successful followers of his style. He painted many works for the churches at Rome, and at different places in the Roman territory. In the church of the Vatican he painted a pendant to the Baptism of jMaratti, repre- senting St. Peter baptizing the Centurion. This work, after being copied in mosaic, was sent to the church of the Coventuals at Urbino. It was executed under the direction of Marat ti himself, and is admirably colored; but in his other works at Kome, such as the Conception, in the church of St. Tommaso in Parione, the coloring is comparatively feeble. At Pesara is one of his most esteemed works, representing St. Jerome meditating on the Last Judgment. He painted for the collections, and was also an excellent portrait painter. Passeri lived in general esteem, and his house was much frequented by persons of the first rank for taste and literature. He died at Kome in 1714. See Spooner, Biog. IJist. of the Fine Arts, ii, 661.
Passeroni, Giax Carlo, an Italian writer, for some time in the service of the Ciiurch, was born in 1713 at Condamine, in the county of Nizza; he studied at jVIilan in the Jesuits' College, and afterwards took orders as a priest. He went to Kome with the papal nuncio, and afterwards returned to Milan, where he spent the rest of his life in a state of poverty often bor- dering upon destitution; but he was so used to be con- tent with little that he felt no inconvenience from his condition, and constanth' refused the offers of his nu- merous Milanese friends to relieve his wants. Pas- seroni was fond of study, and especially of poetry, and he had a great share in reforming the taste of the Ital- ian writers of his age. Parini, who in his youth was intimate with Passeroni, afterwards admitted that to his precepts and example he owed the formation of his own style. The principal work of Passeroni is a half burlesque, half moral poem, styled II Cicerone, in one hundred and one cantos. It is full of digressions, some- thing similar in manner to Sterne's Tristram Shandy ; but Passeroni's digressions are clearly intelligible, and have all a moral scope. A kind of parody of Cicero's life is used by the author as a thread whereon to hang his disquisitions. Passeroni ridicules or reproves the numerous follies and vices of society in a good-humor- ed and often highly amusing strain, and his verses, like those of Uvid, seem to flow naturally and without effort from his pen. This facility, and the unaffectetl sim- plicity of the style, constitute the principal charm of the poem. Passeroni also wrote seven volumes of fables in verse, chiefly imitations of those of /Esop, Pliicdrus, and Avienus. He died at Milan in 1803. — English Cy- clop, s. V.