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| Giulio Cesare Procaccini (Bologna) Penitent Magdalene before 1625 oil on panel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Alessandro Turchi (Verona) Bacchus and Ariadne ca. 1630 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| attributed to Alessandro Turchi (Verona) Madonna and Child with Saints ca. 1620 drawing Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Mattia Preti (Naples) Concert 1620s oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Andrea Sacchi (Rome) Triumph of Wisdom 1630s oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"But among the many others who achieved eminence in painting in our era, another great offspring of Rome calls upon my pen to report new merits of this city in these pages, with the image of a most richly endowed talent, which brought immortal fame to his country and his name. This man was Andrea Sacchi, who drew the first breaths of this mortal life in the city of Rome, where he was born in the year 1601 to Benedetto Sacchi, and as he was born on the eve of the feast of Saint Andrew the apostle, he took his name from him and was named Andrea at his baptism."
"He confirmed his progress when he had not passed his eleventh year, when he took the prize at the Academy of Saint Luke, where even though there were young men competing who were adult in years and in study, nevertheless Andrea's drawing was chosen in first place, and he was rewarded and acclaimed for it by everyone. . . . Now, as praises usually serve as stimulus to a growing talent, Andrea did not stop at that limit, but looking higher, he directed his steps to the ascent, nor did luck desert his virtue; for one day, while he was off by himself drawing a room in a garden, without his hearing or noticing he was joined by Cardinal Del Monte who had drawn near, walking very softly, to look at his drawing; but Andrea suddenly recognized him and blushed with honest embarrassment; and when he rose to withdraw, the cardinal desired him not to move but to continue to draw, and he praised the boy's modesty, concentration, and accomplishment. The cardinal was the patron of the Academy of Saint Luke, which he had reestablished, and a most generous promoter of all the fine arts, and so this lord, looking upon Andrea with kindly inclination and recognizing that he was needy and not well off as to the necessities of life, first of all clothed him anew very respectably and gave him room and board in his house, so that no cares should hamper his talent."
– from The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giovan Pietro Bellori, originally published in 1672, translated by Alice Sedgwick Wohl and published by Cambridge University Press in 2005
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| Bernardo Strozzi (Genoa) David with the Head of Goliath ca. 1635 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Bernardo Strozzi (Genoa) St Secundus and Angel ca. 1635-40 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jacopo da Empola (Florence) Assumption of the Virgin before 1640 oil on panel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jacopo da Empola (Florence) Supper at Emmaus before 1640 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Antonio Maria Vassallo (Genoa) Infancy of King Cyrus ca. 1645-55 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Antonio Maria Vassallo (Genoa) Putti in a Landscape ca. 1650 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Pietro Liberi (Venice) Diana and Callisto 1650s oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Guido Reni (Bologna) Education of the Virgin ca. 1640-42 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"But during the time when the project was being settled, when it was least to be expected in view of the pope's approval and benevolence toward Guido and in view of the plaudits for his name, into this painter's most calm and happy state erupted a disturbance that troubled his repose and induced him to make a sudden departure from Rome, similar to Michelangelo's departure in the time of Julius II; this disturbance, however, was caused not by the pope with his goodness but by the harsh manners of the treasurer, who handled the payments and wished to pay him as he saw fit, too meagerly, for the painting in the Quirinal chapel, criticizing Guido's just demands as exorbitant and excessive, and claiming to be owed a large sum. . . . There is no worse type than certain avaricious and ignorant men who have no appreciation for anything in this world but money, considering every virtue and every precious quality of talent, however noble and estimable, to be useless and vile in comparison. Such men never offer any sustenance to the fine arts on their own initiative and it galls them that anyone else should reward and honor them, so they thwart the generosity of the popes and of those who love and prize the arts. I shall not speak of the other eminent disciplines and their muses, which are poor and denuded, but if those men are in a position to give remuneration for some work of painting, even if it is excellent and bears a famous name, they do not measure its merits otherwise than by the time spent, and they want to reckon the money by counting the days, as in the case of other common labors; if they knew how much it takes and how one has to rack one's brains to apply a brushstroke well to the canvas, they would not talk this way. When a painter reaches the point of understanding a figure, he finds that he has spent decades and despoiled his best years in suffering, discomfort, and effort, now working out the drawing, now the color, now the nude, now the drapery, now imagining inventions and natural affetti, and one study and another, and so much else, there is never an end to it."
– from The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects by Giovan Pietro Bellori, originally published in 1672, translated by Alice Sedgwick Wohl and published by Cambridge University Press in 2005
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| workshop of Guido Reni (Bologna) Abduction of Europa mid-17th century oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Salvator Rosa (Naples) Penitence of the Prodigal Son ca. 1650-55 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |