Tommaso Salini (1575 – 13 September 1625), also known as Mao Salini, was an Italian painter of the early-

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

period, active in Rome. He is best remembered for defending his friend, Giovanni Baglione, in his libel suit against

Caravaggio Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio, known as simply Caravaggio (, , ; 29 September 1571 – 18 July 1610), was an Italian painter active in Rome for most of his artistic life. During the final four years of hi ...

and other painters in his circle. Baglioni describes his

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

paintings. He joined the Accademia di San Luca in 1605. Salini is a frequently forgotten Baroque artist who fell under the spell of Caravaggio, despite having a tempestuous relationship with the great painter. Salini, known as "Mao", was a friend of Giovanni Baglione, the Italian art biographer, who included Salini in his ''Le vite de’ pittori.'' Art historians have often shied away from exploring Salini's career because the canvases that have carried his name seem stylistically dissimilar. The recent tendency has been to attribute these works to anonymous ''Pseudo-Salini'' painters. In order for Salini's ''oeuvre'' to be presented with accuracy, connoisseurs have had to inspect the original works that Baglione mentions as being by Salini's hand, as well as the pictures that have been successfully attributed to him.

References

Web Gallery of Art
biography. 1575 births 1625 deaths 16th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 17th-century Italian painters Italian Baroque painters Painters from Rome {{Italy-painter-16thC-stub