a German painter, composer, and biographer. Copying pictures, chiefly by Salvator Rosa, for a livelihood, his taste led him to draw and paint from nature in Tivoli, Albano and other picturesque places in the vicinity of Rome. Naples, the birthplace of his favorite master, he visited more than once for the same reasons. During the Rome visit, Dies also composed music, though later on he apparently destroyed all that he has written, and none of it survives today. Dies was a great admirer of the music of Joseph Haydn and undertook to meet the composer and write his biography.
