Guglielmo Caccia Detto Il Moncalvo Biography
Guglielmo Caccia (Montabone, 9 May 1568 – Moncalvo, 13 November 1625) was an Italian painter. Guglielmo Caccia, nicknamed Moncalvo because he spent his high school years in the municipality of Moncalvo where he died in 1625, was born in Montabone on 9 May 1568. A pupil of Giovanni Francesco Biancaro, he is considered the most important exponent of the art of the Counter-Reformation in Piedmont, so much so that he was defined as the Raphael of Monferrato. He also worked in Guarene, Vercelli, at Sacro Monte di Crea, in Turin, Novara and Milan. In Carabbia in the parish church of San Siro there is a canvas of his depicting the Madonna and Child between Saints James the Greater and Francis of Assisi. Between 1605-1607 he painted the gallery of the Royal Palace of Turin commissioned by Carlo Emanuele I, together with painter Federico Zuccari, work destroyed following a fire. Among his most important works is the Deposition from the Cross in the Basilica of San Gaudenzio in Novara. He also painted the dome of San Paolo, also in Novara, the church of San Francesco in Moncalvo, the Announcement to the Shepherds (1614) for the Archconfraternity of San Michele in Casale Monferrato and the San Paolo with Sant'Andrea for the church of Sant'Antonio Abate. In 1589 he married Laura Oliva, daughter of the painter Ambrogio Oliva, in Casale.[2]The painter stayed in Chieri around 1606, where many of his works can be admired, such as the cycle of frescoes and large canvases in the church of San Domenico, the Resurrection in the church of San Giorgio, the Madonna with Child and San Bernardino da Siena and the Coronation with Saints Rocco, Sebastiano, Giorgio and Guglielmo in the church of Saints Bernardino and Rocco, the canvas of San Nicola da Tolentino in the same church and others paintings in several religious buildings. It is also believed, but without documentation to support the thesis, that he created some of the Madonnas visible on the facades of civil buildings in the same town. In 1625 he obtained authorization from the bishop of Casale Monferrato Scipione Agnelli to open an Ursuline convent in Moncalvo, in a building he owned, into which four of his daughters were transferred, among whom was Orsola Maddalena Caccia, who she remained in the convent until her death in 1676. Orsola Maddalena followed in her father's footsteps, becoming a talented painter as evidenced by the paintings "Nativity of St. John the Baptist", "St. Luke in the Study" and "Holy Family with St. Anne" present in Moncalvo and exhibited from December 2014 to April 2015 at the "National Museum of Women in the Arts" in Washington.
