page_title: Ermanno Stroiffi
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Ermanno Stroiffi / Life
context_page_description: Ermanno Stroiffi was an Italian Baroque painter and priest. A pupil of prominent Venetian painter Bernardo Strozzi, he created altarpieces, portraits and genre scenes. Stroiffi became a priest in 1647 and in that role he helped to introduce the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Padua and Venice.
context_section_description: Stroiffi was born on 20 October 1616 in Padua as the son of the Flemish painter Giovanni (Jan or Johan, his original Flemish first and family name are not known) who was then working in Padua.  His father died before 1644 as is demonstrated by Ermanno's signature on the will of Bernardo Strozzi in that year. His mother Laura died on 12 September 1652.
  Not much is known about the artist's training.  It is known he became an assistant in the workshop of Bernardo Strozzi.  Strozzi was the leading painter in Venice in the first half of the 17th century and also a Capuchin monk.  Stroiffi was Strozzi's favorite assistant and worked on many of the large commissions which Strozzi received.  Stroiffi was also a beneficiary of Strozzi's will.
  Between 1645 and 1654 when he was still at the start of his career, Stroiffi travelled to various cities in central northern Italy.  One of the cities was Mantua, the historic power base of the Gonzaga family, which was an important patron of the arts.  He received commissions from the Ducal court.  Other painters active at the court in Mantua at that time included Daniel van den Dyck, a Flemish artist who had moved to Mantua around 1657 and had become the court painter.  In the 1650s Stroiffi participated in the cycle of the oratory of San Filippo Neri at the hospital of San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti in Venice.
  Stroiffi became a priest in 1647.  He played an important role in the establishment of the Congregation of the Oratory in Padua and Venice.
caption: Madonna and Child with Saint Anthony
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