Marchesa Balbi

20 November 1621

Departure for Italy, Arrival in Genoa

In 1621 Van Dyck decided to go to Italy; Rubens supplied him with funds and letters of introduction. On 20 November 1621 he arrived in Genoa and remained in Italy for six years, where his fame as a portraitist was consolidated.

winter 1622

Winter in Venice, Studying Titian

Van Dyck spent the winter of 1622 in Venice, where, accompanied by Titian's nephew Cesare Vecellio, he fulfilled a long-held dream of seeing the works of Titian and Paolo Veronese; on the way he stopped in Bologna and Parma, where he admired Correggio's frescoes.

1622

Journey to Rome

In February 1622 Van Dyck left for Rome, where he stayed until August of that year and for most of 1623; he was introduced into the best circles of society and copied Renaissance masterpieces at the Palazzo Ludovisi and the Villa Borghese.

1624

Quarantine During the Plague in Palermo

In Palermo Van Dyck found himself in quarantine during the plague of 1624, one of the most severe in Sicily's history; there he created an important series of paintings of Saint Rosalia, the city's patroness, establishing her iconography for the Italian Baroque.

1624

Invitation to Palermo

In April 1624 Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy, Viceroy of Sicily, invited Van Dyck to Palermo to paint his portrait.

1625

Guest of Peiresc in Provence

In 1625 Van Dyck was briefly the guest of the humanist Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc in Provence.