Alessandro Franchi

(b Prato, 15 March 1838; d Siena, 29 April 1914). Italian painter. He first studied in Prato. In 1853 he was urged by Cesare Guasti (1822-89), the Purismo theorist, to study under Luigi Mussini in Siena in order to absorb a French brand of Purism that was allied to the teaching of Ingres and Hippolyte Flandrin rather than to the rigid purist principles of the Nazarenes. Franchi became Mussini's favourite pupil and was praised for his exceptional talent, his assiduousness and the purity of his forms. His first public commissions

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