Giovanni Maria delle Piane, also known as Il Mulinaretto, was an Italian artist born in an unknown year and place. At the age of ten, he began his apprenticeship with Giovanni Battista Merano and later worked in Rome in Gaulli's workshop. In 1684, he returned to Genoa and became the most important exponent of Genoese portraiture in the first half of the 17th century. He had the ability to update the portrait with a French taste fashionable in the Genoa of the time, reaching the redundant magnificence of Rigaud and Largillière. In 1695, he moved to Parma at the request of the Farnese Court, expressly desired by the new duke Francesco. There followed years of stays divided between Genoa, Parma, and Piacenza to follow the numerous requests tha...