Lapis was born on 13 August 1706 in the central Italian city of
Cagli, the son of Filippo Lapis, a wool merchant, and his wife Olimpia Orlandini of Cantiano. He moved to Rome at a young age and, after a brief apprenticeship with Cristoforo Creo, entered the workshop of
Sebastiano Conca, whom he may have met in 1720 when Conca was working on his
Madonna and Child with Saint Teresa in Cagli Cathedral. Lapis later moved to the workshop of Conca's cousin Giovanni Conca. In his 1787 biography of Lapis,
Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi records that Sebastiano Conca "was fond of his new pupil and taught him with devotion even though he saw he was adopting a style totally different from the one he adhered to". During his time in Conca's workshop he was given the nickname
Il Carraccetto, a reference to the influence of
Bolognese masters of the previous century such as Carracci, Guido Reni and Domenichino. Lapis became a member of the
Academy of the Virtuosi in 1739, and in 1741 he was introduced by Sebastiano Conca as a member of the
Accademia di San Luca. By 1754, he was living permanently in Rome. The list of his pupils includes
Antonio Cavallucci. From 1766, he was commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1734-1782) and his brother Marcantonio IV Borghese (1730-1780) to work on modernizing the church of
Santa Caterina da Siena a Via Giulia and then of
Palazzo Borghese in Rome. A document in the archive of the Accademia di San Luca records the funeral expenses for the "late academician Gaetano Lapis", indicating that he died in April 1773. == Works ==