Painter, architect, and theorist of perspective. Of Lombard origin (his father came from Como). Pozzo entered a monastery in 1665. He studied painting in Milan, Genoa, and Venice and was invited by P. Oliva, general of the Jesuit order, to come to Rome where he arrived in 1681. Amongst others, Pozzo worked for Livio Odescalchi, nephew of the Pope. His influential treatise Prospettiva de' pittori a architetti, 2 vols., Rome 1693-1700 (London 1707; Augsburg 1708-1711), gave instructions for the painting of architectural perspectives, for stage set designs, ephemeral church decorations and practical advice to the designer and painter of quadrature. In 1702 Pozzo went to Vienna to work for the Emperor Leopold. (Peter Fuhring, Design into Art, Drawings for Architecture and Ornament: The Lodewijk Houthakker Collection, 1898, p.268.)