Monsù Desiderio is the name formerly given to an artist believed to have painted architectural scenes in a distinctive style in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

in the early seventeenth century. The term ''monsù'', a corruption of the French ''monsieur'', was often used by Neapolitan historians to denote a painter of foreign origin. In the mid-twentieth century, art historians identified the works previously attributed to "Desiderio" as being by at least three different painters: François de Nomé and Didier Barra, both originally from

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

, and a third artist, whose name is unknown. Nomé's works were described by

Rudolf Wittkower Rudolf Wittkower (22 June 1901 – 11 October 1971) was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the Unite ...

as "bizarre and ghostlike paintings of architecture, often crumbling and fantastic".

References

French Baroque painters Italian Baroque painters {{Italy-artist-stub