Domenico Fiasella was born in Sarzana in 1589. His father, a silversmith, soon discovered his son’s ability in the art of drawing so he looked for help to bishop Giovan Battista Salvago and he sent the boy to Genoa, first by Aurelio Lomi’s studio and then by the one of Gian Battista Paggi.

Even if that city was full of churches, noble palaces, pictures and sculptures the boy wasn’t satisfied and wanted to go to Rome, he managed to do this in 1617.

For some years he went on with the exercises, drawing the roman ruins, attending painting schools and reproducing paintings of famous painters. At last his talent was descovered by Guido Reni and from that moment the fame of the Sarzana, as he was called, increased on and on.

When he came back to Genoa he was contended between the nobles that asked him portraits and pictures and the priests that asked him to decorate their churches. The study of the Madonna on the high altar of St. Lorenzo cathedral belonged to him.

In Genoa he opened a school and for the production of many paintings he was helped by his best pupils. Besides religious subjects he didn’t dislike also the profane ones, especially those from mithology. He neither forgot his native town: some of his works are in the cathedral, in the church of St. Francis and in the village called St. Lazzaro. In the painting dedicated to St. Lazzaro the town of Sarzana is reproduced on the lower side.

He died in Genoa in 1669 and buried in the church of St. Maria della Pace. In Sarzana we find some of his works.

In the cathedral:
. The Visitation
. SS. Lazzaro, Nicola and Giorgio
. Glory of the Holy Blood in the Chapel of the relics
. SS Apollinare, Lucia and Cecilia (1626)
. St Andrew’s martrydom (1653) with a supposed self-portrait
. The massacre of the Innocents

In St. Andrew Church
. The Vocation of SS. James and John

In San Lazzaro
. St. Lazzaro (with a view of Sarzana)

In Lerici
. The Sacred Family with Bishop Eligio and Abbot Andrew, in the Oratory of St. Rocco
. Madonna with Child and SS. Bernardino and Francis, in the Oratory of St. Bernardino.