Francesco Costanzo Catanio (1602 – 3 July 1665) 

• Was a painter of the Italian Baroque period.
• Born and mainly active in Ferrara.
• Also known as Catanio, Cattani, Cattaneo, or Cattanio, sometimes without the forename Francesco.

• Initially trained under Ippolito Scarsellino in Ferrara, until – because of his "...litigious and ill-tempered..." manner – his father, Giulio Cesare Catanio, sent him to Bologna to study in the school of Guido Reni.

• On the death of his father in 1627, he returned to Ferrara.

• Catanio was described as being prone to carrying a sword, hunting, and engaging in brawls.

• He was so quarrelsome and had such a turbulent disposition that he passed the greater portion of his life in exile.

• After injuring a soldier, Catanio was forced to seek refuge in the monastery of San Francesco, where he was employed in painting frescoes.

• In 1654, he travelled briefly to Rome in the patronage of Cardinal Carlo Pio di Savoia.

• In his earliest works in Ferrara – a San Gregorio originally painted soon after 1630 for the church of that saint, now in Santa Maria dei Teatini, and the Coronazione di spine and Flagellazione in the Duomo from before 1636.

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