Pietro Paolo Bonzi, known as “Gobbo dei Carracci” or “Gobbo dei Frutti”

Thanks to his death certificate informing us that he died in Rome on 17 March 1636 at the age of sixty¹, we know that Pietro Paolo Bonzi was born in Cortona c. 1576, the son of a carpenter, and that in all likelihood he owed his nickname to the physical impairment from which he suffered.

Of crucial importance in reconstructing his career are a Life written by Giovanni Baglione and the notes penned by Giulio Cesare Malvasia². Baglione tells us that Bonzi was a member of Marquis Giovanni Battista Crescenzi’s circle and of his “Academy”, an entity of fundamental importance in the perfection, if not the actual birth, of the “Caravaggesque” still-life, where Bonzi took his first steps in painting in the company of that other neophyte Bartolomeo Cavarozzi3, who played a decisive role in developing the genre (if indeed, as most critics now agree, he is none other than the anonymous Acquavella Still-life Master⁴). Unfortunately, despite much study and research, we cannot venture any further in surmising the kind of activity conducted in the “Academy”⁵, although it is fairly unlikely to have been a conventional school with regular lessons. It is far more likely to have been a venue placed at artists’ disposal by Crescenzi for the practice of various artistic disciplines (primarily painting), with the Marquis playing the role of patron to his protégés and, as Luigi Spezzaferro has very reasonably suggested⁶, also that of a fully-fledged entrepreneur in the art world. Whatever the case, judging by what Baglione tells us both in his biography of Bonzi and in his profiles of Cavarozzi and of Crescenzi (the longest and most detailed of his Lives), still-life must have been one of the most popular genres practised in the “Academy”. In fact Baglione informs us that Bonzi «took up residence in the Crescenzi home and began to paint fruit from life» and that «he paints them so excellently well that he has even taken his name from them, being known as the Gobbo de’ frutti» or hunchback of the fruit.

Malvasia’s notes on Bonzi, on the other hand, apprise us of a different side of the painter’s human and artistic personality, namely the side associated with the Carracci circle in Rome. We have Malvasia to thank, or to blame, for the nickname “Gobbo dei Carracci” inspired by his relationship with Annibale Carracci and with the landscape artist Giovanni Battista Viola. While we have no actual documentary evidence for Bonzi’s relationship with Annibale, Viola’s role in setting him on the path to landscape painting and to the adoption of a sophisticated style reflecting the influence not only of Viola but also of Albani and of Domenichino rather than that of Annibale, is far more plausible a propostion⁷. Bonzi’s rare corpus of paintings includes, in particular, the fresco decoration of the gallery in Palazzo Mattei di Giove to a commission from Asdrubale Mattei, a project both discussed at considerable length by Baglione and mentioned in surviving documents⁸. Bonzi began working on the frescoes on 22 June 1622, while payments only ceased on 4 December 1623.

These frescoes are the latest example of a decorative scheme linked to a tradition dating back to Raphael’s Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, with “imitation pictures” set in frames of false stucco decoration and nudes in the style of Michelangelo, emulating a trend begun by Annibale Carracci in the Galleria Farnese – the whole, completed by very fine garlands of flowers, fruit and vegetables, thus raising the problem of Bonzi’s still-life output. A specialist in the genre, he was to become one of Rome’s most sought-after artists, as we can tell from the inventories of the collections held by the leading families of the day. He painted a number of still-lifes for Asdrubale Mattei in 1626, while an «overdoor with various flowers and fruits painted [by Pietro Paolo Gobbo] on a canvas 5 by 6 palms with no frame» is mentioned in the inventory of Vincenzo Giustinian’s collection drafted on the latter’s death in 1638⁹. Another overdoor was part of Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna’s collection in 1679, and other paintings were to be found in the collection of Cardinal Aloisio Omodei in 1706, while the inventory drafted in 1682/3 of the collection of Gaspar de Haro y Guzmán, seventh Marquis of Carpio and Viceroy of Naples whose palazzo in Rome overlooked the Piazza di Spagna, lists fully fifteen paintings by the “Gobbo”, including not only still-lifes but also landscapes, old men’s heads and religious subjects

The “Gobbo” must also have habitually practised figure painting, an example of his output in this field being the Incredulity of St. Thomas, painted in 1633 for one of the altars in the Pantheon¹⁰ and still in situ, which is a rare example of the genre within his corpus, as indeed is engraving. Moreover, Bonzi must have played a role of some importance on the art scene in Rome in his day, because in 1634 we find him enrolled in the Accademia di San Luca¹¹ and resident in Via Rasella, right next door to Palazzo Barberini and to the home of Domenichino, where he is recorded on 17 March 1636¹².