Giampietro Zanotti

Giampietro Zanotti (1674–1765) was an Italian painter and art historian of the late-Baroque or Rococo period.

Biography He studied painting in Bologna with Lorenzo Pasinelli. In the first decade of the 18th century, he became one of the founding members of the artists' academy in Bologna, known as the Accademia Clementina. Although his painting, as exemplified by such works as Joseph Retrieving the Silver Cup from Benjamin’s Sack (Bologna, Credito Romagnolo), was undistinguished, being a weak blend of classicist clichés and the graceful Rococo palette derived from Pasinelli, Zanotti was a friend of many outstanding men of letters and wrote widely on subjects connected with art.

Writings In 1710 he contributed a defence of Guido Reni’s works in the controversy between Dominique Bouhours and Giovan Gioseffo Orsi concerning the concepts of ‘delicateness’ and ‘weakness’ in painting. By that date he had already published a number of works, including a biography (1703) of Pasinelli, a defence (1705) of Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Felsina pittrice (1678), which championed the late Baroque Bolognese tradition, and a revised edition (1706) of Malvasia’s guidebook Le pitture di Bologna (1686).

However, his most famous work is the two-volume Storia dell’Accademia Clementina (1739). He was a founder member of the Accademia and its secretary until 1723 and again between 1730 and 1759. The Accademia was founded by General Luigi Marsili in 1710. Its activities included teaching courses, competitions and exhibition of competition works. A sharp-edged but restrained criticism of the founder and other fellow members is perceptible in this work, and was to be amplified later by Luigi Crespi.

Most of Zanotti’s later books related to his activity in the Accademia. Influenced by Bellori and the Roman school, they reveal a marked shift in emphasis towards a more orthodox classical theory of art that veered away from the Baroque tradition of Malvasia. In Le pitture di Pellegrino Tibaldi (1756), Zanotti heavily criticized Malvasia as a historian for factual inaccuracy.

As a poet, he can broadly be described as a classicist, belonging to the Bolognese neo-Petrarchan school. Zanotti wrote also a biography of the painter Giovanni Sole. Giampietro's brother, Francesco Maria Zanotti, was a philosopher in Bologna. His son Eustachio Zanotti was a noted astronomer and mathematician. Among his pupils was Ercole Lelli, best known for his anatomic studies in wax.

Partial Anthology