Marcantonio Bassetti was born in Verona. He trained with Brusasorci before moving to Venice, where he seems to have studied the works of Tintoretto, Veronese, the Bassano family and Palma Giovane. In 1616, he is recorded in Rome, where he moved towards the Caravaggesque style of Saraceni and Orazio Borgianni. Bassetti returned to Verona around 1620, and after this date the influence of the Venetian painter Domenico Fetti can be felt throughout his later works. So too can a profound interest in narrative and in the problem of conveying the emotional and moral meaning of religious subjects through an immediate expressive language accessible to all viewers.