| The “famous struggle between the
Amoretti and the Baccarini of the Marchese Facchenetti,
his (Guido Reni’s) great protector in case of need”, quoted
in several places by Malvasia. He also recorded that “While
in Rome, Guido was at great risk of his life on account of a loan,
and was in prison, from which he was liberated through the protection
and the adroitness of the Marchese Facchinetti the Elder, for whom
Guido painted and sent to Bologna as a gift a painting of little putti,
of a vivid colouring almost worthy of Caravaggio and of good design”.
The picture was painted and given by the artist to his patron.
The subject, which was once called “Plebeian putti fighting
against noble putti”, has a particular iconographic importance.
Facchinetti was the ambassador of Bologna to Rome and the episode
refers to the contrast which arose between Reni and Cardinal Giovan
Battista Pamphilj at the time of the arrival of the artist in the
city, the time to which both the paintings by Reni in the Doria
Gallery can be dated.
It was a critical moment for Reni, at the centre of the tensions
between the Barberini and Pamphilj families, but which at the same
time is a prelude to the absolute triumph of his fortunes in the
1630s.
Reni in fact begins to embody the living myth of the artist, exciting
unconditional praise from his contemporaries. Malvasia, witnessing
Reni’s bizarre behaviour and high-handedness towards popes,
cardinals and the powerful, commented; “Everything is condoned
when confronted with his great talent, since there is only one Guido
in the world”. |
