Giovanni Battista Agucchi

He began his career in 1580–82 assisting his much older brother Girolamo Agucchi (1555–1605), later briefly a cardinal from 1604 to 1605, who was governor of Faenza in the Papal States, then studied at Bologna and Rome.

[1][2] Agucchi was a cultivated intellectual, and the friend of many artists, playing a significant role in introducing painters from his native Bologna to patrons in the Roman Curia.

[4] He frequently crops up in discussion of Roman commissions of the period, for example suggesting Ludovico Carracci to the authorities for an altarpiece in Saint Peter's, Rome, though without success.

[7] Domenichino joined Carracci in his work on the Palazzo Farnese, and Agucchi and his brother introduced him to Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini and the future Gregory XV.

Cardinal Aldobrandini's personal taste was for the Late Mannerist style of Giuseppe Cesari (the Cavaliere d'Arpino) and others, and his support of the Bolognese must be largely attributed to Agucchi's advocacy.

[11] Agucchi's elder brother, Cardinal Girolamo, commissioned Domenichino to paint three frescos on the life of Saint Jerome in the portico of Sant'Onofrio in Rome, which are still in place.

From Annibale Carracci Cardinal Aldobrandini commissioned a set of decorative frescos with religious subjects in landscapes for his palace in Rome, now containing the Doria Pamphilj Gallery and still in the family, the Domine, quo vadis?

[13] Eva-Bettina Krems suggests that Agucchi is a likely candidate for the connection that introduced the Lombard sculptor Ippolito Buzzi to Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, who provided a steady stream of work to him over several years.

[14] The fine and intimate portrait in York Art Gallery (illustrated) had always been attributed to Domenichino until an article in 1994 proposed that it was instead by Annibale Carracci, from around 1603; it was owned by Agucchi until his death.

[2][17] The Trattato "is a lively document on official Roman art circles during the years 1607–15 and concentrates specifically on exalting the idea della bellezza, which Agucchi identifies particularly in ancient sculpture.

[18] Agucchi drew from Neoplatonist thought, in which "nature is the imperfect reflection of the divine, and the artist must improve upon it to achieve beauty", a view already conventional in the previous century.

[20] The period was generally lacking in writing on art theory, apart from the series of lectures for the Accademia di San Luca by Federico Zuccari, its first president.

[21] The younger antiquary Francesco Angeloni, was a close friend who had also worked for the Aldobrandini, in his case Pope Clement VIII, and owned at least a copy of the York portrait.