Cesare Fracassini

While he was born to Paolo Serafini, originally from Orvieto; his father died when he was an infant and his mother remarried with a Domenico Fracassini.

[1] Cesare was born in Rome, and studied painting there with either Tommaso Minardi, or his pupils, before enrolling in the Accademia di San Luca, where he executed several frescoes for San Lorenzo fuori le Mura.

He lived alongside the painter Cesare Mariani as a young man.

He often collaborated or obtained commissions with his friend Paolo Mei, as well as a colleague of Guglielmo de Sanctis (a pupil of Minardi) and Bernardo Celentano.

One of his most important pictures is The Martyrs of Gorinchem (also called Canisio e i Martiri del Giappone), painted for a beatification ceremony in the Vatican.