Bernardo de' Dominici

[3] For many years, De Dominici lived in the household of the duke of Laurenzana (or Laurenzano), Niccolò Gaetani dell'Aquila d'Aragona, and his wife, Aurora Sanseverino (1669-1726), patron, poet, and member of the Roman Accademia degli Arcadi, a literary and philosophical society, whose branch in Naples she hosted.

[6] In great part because of his association with Sanseverino, De Dominici was in contact with the intellectual and artistic elite of Naples, among them Solimena, Giambattista Vico, Francesco Valletta, Matteo Egizio, and Antonio Roviglione, with whom he exchanged sonnets.

[10] Ricciardi was subsequently responsible for the publication of several important texts on art, including De Dominici's major work, the Lives of the Neapolitan Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (Vite dei pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani).

He discussed but did not devote full biographies to significant artists who worked in Naples relatively briefly, such as Caravaggio, Domenichino, Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco, and Artemisia Gentileschi.

boasting the merits of their professors [of art] and raising to the stars the excellent works they had made, wanted their youth to follow in the glorious footsteps of the Raphaels, Correggios, Titians, and Michelangelos.

"[13] Moved by such examples to pity the fate of many praiseworthy Neapolitan painters, architects, and sculptors, De Dominici wrote, he determined to raise them from the darkness of oblivion in which they languished.

[19] The critique and dismissal of De Dominici as a source achieved its most pointed expression when the young Benedetto Croce dubbed him "Il Falsario" ("The Forger") in an 1892 essay in the journal.

[20] Many of De Dominici's assertions have proven to be inaccurate, and considerable criticism has been levied against his use of putative sources (especially a manuscript from the 16th-century "notary Criscuolo" and notes from the 17th-century painter Massimo Stanzione) that were suspected of being invented by the author himself.