Gaetano Gandolfi

The portraits by Gandolfi, extensively studied by art historian Donatella Biagi Maino, the editor of this volume and curator of the accompanying exhibition that finally made them visible to the public, lead readers to rediscover a great master of Italian art. It is a journey between art and science dedicated to the ambitious project embarked on by Ferdinando Bassi (1710-1774), an eminent scientist from the Institute of Sciences of Bologna, who in the 1760s decided to create an actual picture gallery within the Academy to house portraits of the most important botanists from antiquity to his time: from Theophrastus to Linnaeus to Ulisse Aldrovandi. Among the artists summoned, the talent of young Bolognese Gaetano Gandolfi (the author of sixty-nine watercolours illustrated here) stood out immediately. Despite being an artist who is not widely studied today, though his works are displayed in several important museums worldwide, such as the Louvre or the Metropolitan, Gandolfi is one of the most acclaimed portraitists on the national and international late 18th-century scene, especially for his great skill in expressing refined dialogues between the still strong Rocaille influence and the Neoclassical style that was gaining prominence throughout Europe.