Born in
Rome, he was one of four artist sons of his father, an innkeeper:
Rocco (1701–74) was an engraver, with whom Stefano worked on occasion; Andrea (1718–69), a carver in ivory;
Giuseppe (1723–65) was also a painter. Stefano Pozzi studied in the ateliers of the two best followers of
Carlo Maratta, that of
Andrea Procaccini, who departed for Spain in 1720, and then
Agostino Masucci. In 1732, Stefano was admitted to the
Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon and became its Regent in 1739. In 1736, he was admitted to the
Accademia di San Luca, the artist guild in Rome. Pozzi worked primarily for Roman churches; for example, he painted a
Blessed Niccolò Albergati for a chapel of the
Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; eight ovals between the windows (c. 1736) for the church of
San Silvestro al Quirinale (
Titi 1763); the refectory of the Church of
San Gregorio Nazareno; a
Death of St Joseph (1742) for the third chapel of the Church of
Santissimo Nome di Maria (Titi 1763). He frescoed a ''Sant'Apollinare in Gloria'' in the vault of the church of
Sant'Apollinare alle Terme, which was rebuilt by
Ferdinando Fuga and rededicated in 1748. Among the flock of artists who worked on the Chapel of
Pope Sixtus V, he contributed figures of angels in the spandrels of arches (Titi 1763). In 1744, he was summoned to
Naples by Cardinal
Giuseppe Spinelli to decorate the apse of the
Cathedral restored by
Paolo Posi; for the right wall, he painted the large oil of
SS Januarius and Agrippino Driving out the Saracens (still in place) and on the vault, a fresco of a choir of Angels (still in place). In subsequent commissions, he worked with the architect
Luigi Vanvitelli: in 1744, he produced two paintings for the Montemorcino monastery that Vanvitelli had built for the Olivetans at Perugia (now the Palazzo dell’ Università): an
Annunciation (still in place) and the
Blessed Bernardino Tolomei among the Plague-stricken (
Santa Francesca Romana in Rome). In
Perugia he frescoed the sacristy of the Church of
il Gesù. For the library that Vanvitelli designed for the
Palazzo Sciarra–Colonna in Rome, Pozzi painted allegories of the Signs of the Zodiac, and in
Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj he decorated the Saletto degli Specchi. Architects
Vincenzo Brenna,
Giacomo Quarenghi and painter
Antonio Cavallucci trained in classic painting at Pozzi workshop. The picture
Madonna surrounded by angels and clouds has been recently attributed to him by Dr. Stella Rudolph. Pozzi died in Rome in 1768. ==Notes==