Marchesi then joined the workshop of Marcantonio Franceschini, an early and masterful exponent of the classicist style in Italy, at least until the affirmation of Donato Creti.
For example, he displays a more refined naturalism in the "Nocturnal Winter", in which Marchesi experiments with realistic and unusual effects of light and shadows, that demonstrate, as do the other three works, a knowledge of Northern European Rococo painting.
However, already The Rape of Elena documents the start of the passage of Marchesi to what will be the second and central phase of his activity, in which, fascinated by the style of Vittorio Maria Bigari (1692–1776), he will employ translucent colors, with slender figures, crystalline skies and seas, and backgrounds of classic vertex architectures.
In the third and last period, Marchesi, while remaining an excellent performer, lost the compositional lightness that had characterized his youth and mature age, apparently as a result of depression caused by the declining health of his wife.
[1] The Zambeccari Library, formerly of the Jesuit order, was decorated by Nicola Bertuzzi and Marchesi as figure painters, Pietro Scandelari in quadratura and Antonio Calegari as stuccoist.