An Ardent Patron explores the exceptional contribution Cardinal Camillo Massimo (1620–1677) made to the culture of seventeenth-century Rome.

A close friend of Nicolas Poussin and Diego Velázquez and an even closer friend of Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Massimo combined a sophisticated intellect with a wide range of cultural interests, wich he pursued with determination. He became a highly regarded antiquarian collector and patron of contemporary artists, including, besides Poussin and Velázquez, Claude Lorraine and Carlo Maratti, and he significantly influenced the taste of the following century. This book reconstructs his patronage and collection in the context of the society that produced him, and argues for his role as an active force promoting particular artists, theories and enterprises in Baroque Rome.

Lisa Beaven is a lecturer in art history at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her research interests focus on the patronage and collecting of art in seventeenth-century Rome, the early modern history of archaeology and its relationship to the Catholic Church, and landscape painting and the environment.