Gaulli Baciccio, Giovanni Battista (1639–1709)

Italian baroque painter. He decorated many Roman churches with dazzling flamboyance, his principal work being the ceiling of the church of the Gesù, Rome, 1668–83, where figures floating in painted perspective combine with sculpture in astonishing illusion.

He studied in Genoa and Rome. The work of Peter Paul Rubens and Antonio Correggio, and his association with Giovanni Bernini, helped to form his style. He painted seven popes and was considered the leading portrait painter of his time in Rome.