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Le pitture di Bologna: che nella pretesa, e rimostrata in sin hora da altri maggiore aitichità, e imparreggiabile eccellanza nella pittura, ... tendono il passeggiere disingannato ed instruvtto
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In Bologna: per Giocomo Monti, 1686
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Malvasia was born to an aristocratic Bolognese family. He gained early fame for his poetry and dabbled in painting as an aristocratic pursuit under Giacinto Campana (b. 1600), Giacomo Cavedone and the literary academy dei Gelati. After graduating with a law degree, Malvasia went to Rome in 1639 where he further participated in the literary academies (degli Umoristi and dei Fantastici) and met Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Ginetti, Cardinal Bernardino Spada (1594-1661) and the artist Alessandro Algardi (1598-1654). From 1647 onward he lectured in Law at the university in Bologna. After publishing an essay related to the theological aspects of a painting, Lettera a Monsignor Albergati, 1652, and obtaining a theology degree in 1653, he was appointed a canon in Bologna Cathedral in 1662. Malvasia’s appointment took him to the capitals of the Italian states and contacts with the cultural administrators of the land, including Marco Boschini and Nicolas Régnier, and Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici (whom he advised on his collections) and, in1665, Pierre Cureau de la Chambre, who gained him entré into the French court of Louis XIV and the Académie Royale. During this period, Malvasia collected and researched the artistic life of his native Bologna. This resulted in the 1678 Felsina Pittrice, Malvasia’s narrative art history of painting in Bologna. Arranged as a series of biographies of Bolognese artists, it is the primary document on Bolognese artists of the Baroque. He attempts to place Bolognese art at the forefront, highlighting its innovations. He divided his book into four sections, beginning with the primitives, then Francesco Francia, then the Carracci and, ending with the great baroque artists of Malvasia’s generation, Guido Reni, Domenichino, Francesco Albani and Guercino. In 1686 he published Le Pitture di Bologna, a “gallery guide” for the artists about whom he had spoken in the Felsina. The guide was tremendously popular and was reprinted seven times in the next hundred years.
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