He executed some large works in fresco in Modena, Naples, and Malta. He had not equal success at S. Andrea della Valle, in Rome, where he painted three histories of that saint, under the tribune of Domenichino; a proximity from which his work suffers considerably, and the figures appear out of proportion, and not well adapted to the situation. His oil pictures in Italy are innumerable, as he lived to an advanced age; he had a great rapidity of hand, and was accustomed, wherever he went, to leave some memorial of his talents, sometimes in the churches, but chiefly in private collections, and they are, in general, figures of half size, like those of Guercino and Caravaggio. Naples, Rome, and Florence, all abound with his works, but above all Bologna. In the Marulli palace is his Belisarius asking alms; in that of Ratti, a S. Penitente, chained in a suffering position; in the Malvezzi palace, Sir Thomas More in prison; in that of the Ercolani, a Pestilence, besides many more in the same, and other galleries of the nobility. Amongst his altarpieces, one of the most finished is in the Duomo of Siena, S. Bernardino preaching to and converting the people. In Naples, besides the soffitto of the church de' Celestini, he painted not a little; less however than both he himself and the professors of a better taste desired, and in conjunction with whom he resisted the innovations of Giordano. But that artist had an unprecedented popularity, and in spite of his faults triumphed over all his contemporaries, and Preti was himself obliged to relinquish the contest, and close his days in Malta, of which order, in honour of his great merit as a painter, he was made a commendatore. He left some imitators in Naples, one of whom was Domenico Viola; but neither he, nor his other scholars passed the bounds of mediocrity. The same may be said of Gregorio Preti, his brother, of whom there is a fresco at S. Carlo de' Catinari, in Rome.