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Biography
Giovanni Felice Ramelli (1666–1740) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Rome. He also became an abbot of the Augustinian order of Canons Regular of the Lateran.
He was born in Asti in the Piedmont. He became a monk in the abbey of S. Andrea in Vercelli, then in San Pietro di Gattinara, and finally was named abbott of Santa Maria Nova of Asti in 1707. He initially trained in Vercelli with the manuscript illuminator, the monk Danese Rho. He was Master of thumbnail/miniature to the pastel painter Rosalba Carriera and Maria Felice Tibaldi who married in 1939 P.H.Subleyras.
In 1717, he was called to Rome, where he was made by Pope Clement XI Albani, abbott in perpetuity of the Augustinian St John Lateran. He died in Rome and was buried in 1941 Santa Maria della Pace.
The Abbot was in contact with many artists including Francesco Trevisani, Antonio Balestra, Carlo Maratta, Nicolas Vleughels, Anton Maria Zanetti.
For his proximity to the Pope and his role in the Vatican Bibioteque, was a conduit for Daniel Seiter called to realize the copper engravings of greek Menologion of San Basilio II translated and restored by the Abbot.
The Ramelli Abbot commissioned Subleyras canvas call "dinner at Simone's home" for Santa Maria Nuova in Asti in 1739 and, in the same year, introduced Subleyras into Academy of St. Luke, of which he was a member since 1722 as Academic Merit.
He excelled in portrait miniatures. In the Gallery of Bologna, there are miniatures of Guido Reni, Lorenzo Pasinelli, Giovanni Gioseffo Dal Sole; while in Dresden is a female portrait. In the Riksmuseum of Amsterdam, there is a miniature of Joseph and Potiphar by Carlo Cignani. The Palazzo Graziani in Pesaro has a miniature painting of a Shepherd with dead game, while at the University of Padua is a miniature of the Virgin and Child. The King of Sardinia invited him to his court, where he was for some time employed in painting the portraits of the most celebrated painters, many of which he copied from the originals, painted by themselves, in the Florentine Gallery (now Uffizi).