Saint Andrea Corsini dressed as Bishop of Fiesole, holding a crosier and looking up, after Reni

Art Historical Context

This etching by Francesco Rosaspina captures Saint Andrea Corsini, the 14th-century bishop of Fiesole, in a moment of quiet reverence. Dressed in bishop’s robes and holding a crosier, the saint gazes upward with a serene expression, embodying the spiritual devotion central to his legend. Rosaspina created the print after an original composition by Guido Reni, the celebrated Bolognese Baroque painter known for his graceful figures and luminous religious scenes. Active between roughly 1780 and 1841, Rosaspina specialized in reproductive etchings that brought major Italian paintings to wider audiences. Such prints played a vital role in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, allowing collectors and scholars across Europe to study celebrated works without traveling to churches or private collections. The delicate line work and tonal subtlety of etching proved especially suited to conveying Reni’s refined modeling of drapery and expressive faces. Housed today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Drawings and Prints, this sheet preserves both the saint’s iconography and the artistic dialogue between Reni’s original vision and Rosaspina’s skilled translation into print.