Patronage and Devotion: A Focus on Seven Roman Baroque Paintings

New approaches to the study of the complex processes involved in the making of a work of art. Patronage and Devotion accompanies an exhibition of works by prominent Baroque artists at the Villa Mondragone, a Renaissance papal villa in the countryside of Rome. The highlight of the catalog and exhibition is a group of masterpieces by seven prominent artists of the seventeenth century: five altarpieces by Carlo Saraceni, Valentin de Boulogne, Andrea Sacchi, Andrea Camassei, and Carlo Maratti, and one easel painting by Guido Reni commissioned for private devotion. Most of the paintings will be on public view for the first time. With new research, remarkable photographs, and details of diagnostic analyses of the altarpieces, this publication offers a fresh look at sacred imagery and its uses through selected studies related to seventeenth-century Roman visual culture. By reconstructing the religious and social dynamics of artistic patronage and the context of worship and devotion in which these paintings were executed―fully documented by primary sources―the volume explores the visual impact of these works on the viewers.

Giovan Battista Fidanza is professor of early modern art history and director of the PhD Programme in Cultural Heritage at Tor Vergata University of Rome. He is the editor-in-chief of Rivista d'Arte. Guendalina Serafinelli teaches at the Catholic University of America Rome Center and is an advisor to the American Academy in Rome.