MOLA (Pietro Francesco), an eminent painter, was born, according to most authors, at Lugano, a city belonging to the Switzers, in the year 1609. Others affirm, that the place of his birth was Coldra, in the district of Como. He was at first the disciple of Giuseppe d'Arpino, and afterwards of Albano. When he quitted the school of the latter, he went to Venice, and studied assiduously the pictures of Titian, Tintoretto, Basan, and Paolo Veronese. He painted historical subjects and landscapes with great success; but his genius seemed more particularly adapted to the latter. His pictures, in both styles, are spoken of with the warmest commendations. He died in 1665. — He had a brother, Giovanni Batista, who was also a painter, and of some merit, but very inferior to that of the older.