The Medici's Painter

Book excerpt: Carlo Dolci (1616-1687), arguably the greatest painter in 17th-century Florence, was admired and patronized by the city's leading families. Best known for his half-length and single-figure devotional pictures, Dolci was also a gifted painter of altarpieces and portraits. Written by a team of distinguished scholars, The Medici's Painter offers new archival discoveries and insights and features cross-disciplinary approaches to Dolci's life and art and the cultural and political contexts in which he worked. The volume sheds new light on Dolci's significant and impressive body of work. The painter understood the power of his paintings to inspire contemporaries, and his works continue to compel individuals to look closely and feel deeply about art.