Giovanni Battista Paggi (1554-1627) - Holy Family

Expertiese: Prof. Camillo Manzitti

dimensions: canvas 102x86, frame 115x99cm

The painting reproduced here, depicting the Holy Family (oil on canvas, cm. 102 x 86) is a certain work of the Genoese painter Giovanni Battista Paggi (Genoa 1554 - 1627).

Of noble origins, provided with a vast literary culture thanks to his youthful studies, Paggi had no difficulty in making friends in the highest intellectual circles of his time.

Self-taught, he was a master of himself and of the talent given to him by Mother Nature, thanks to which he was able to re-elaborate with personalities cultured from the best of what was produced in painting. But above all, his friendship with Luca Cambiaso, who was prodigal in advice and teaching, was of great benefit to his willingness to learn.

He was also able to take advantage of the many years he spent in Florence during a twenty-year exile in Tuscany (1579-1599) due to a conviction for mortally injuring a man in an armed conflict.

The occasion brought him great familiarity with the Florentine painters and especially with Cigoli, for a mutual exchange of stimuli and influences.

The works painted in Florence for various churches, were so successful that they were reproduced in prints by the great Flemish engraver Cornelis Galle, and disseminated everywhere.

This Holy Family must probably be referred to the time of his return to his homeland, or in any case towards the end of his stay in Tuscany, as suggested by the obvious similarities with works certainly documented or dated around the turn of the century.

This is the time when his painting indulges in poetic accents of affectionate and sweet sentimentalism, where the exchange of loving senses in an atmosphere of everyday domesticity often prevails over the cultured but austere literary inflections typical of the intellectual sphere of belonging.