Simone Cantarini. Simone Cantarini or Simone da Pesaro, called il Pesarese was an Italian painter and engraver.
   He is mainly known for his history paintings and portraits executed in an original style, which united aspects of Bolognese classicism with a bold naturalism. Cantarini was also a gifted engraver who achieved extraordinary delicacy and a vibrant and luminous quality in his graphic work.
   Cantarini was born in Pesaro, now a town in the Italian region of the Marche, then part of the Papal States and ruled by the Della Rovere. He was baptized on 21 August 1612.
   His father Girolamo was a prominent merchant and the family was well-off. There is no documentary information on Cantarini's early training.
   Initially he may have been a pupil of Giovanni Giacomo Pandolfi. A religious person from a church in Pesaro who supported Cantarini's artistic career accompanied the young artist on a trip to Venice. In Venice he could take advantage of the guidance of the Venetian late-Mannerist painter Sante Peranda and learned drawing skills from Francesco Mingucci, a fellow citizen of Pesaro residing in Venice. He returned to Pesaro. He received his first commissions from the Augustinian order in Pesaro and nearby Fano. His first commissions included the painting Saint Rita of Cascia, now in the Saint Augustine Church of Pesaro, and The Immaculate Conception with Saints. It is assumed that Cantarini became
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