Flora Romana

While we were visiting the water gardens at Villa d'Este yesterday in Tivoli, we saw in Cardinal d'Este Palace a painting exhibit called Flora Romana or Roman flowers. The naturalistic genre of flower painting became established in Rome towards the end of the 16th century. A nice change in painting styles brought about by the Renaissance, I do get tired of Virgin in Child.
By the end of the 16th century, Rome became one of the most important centres of medical experimentation and botanical research of the time. During those years books were printed in Europe containing only images of flowers, the passion for botanical collection was spreading. It was around 1583 that never seen plants from the New World started appearing in Europe, painters indulge patrons, Jan Breughel the Elder was a master of the genre and he was copied in Italy.

Mario Nuzzi began to compile a vast archive of drawings of the most rare flowers in Roman gardens at the request of the Cardinal nephew of Pope Urban VIII. The great Princely families of the Court of the Pope started to compete amongst themselves to have the most beautiful gardens and rarest blooms. This led Mario Nuzzi to develop art markets for floral paintings and great artists would compete for commissions from patrons and art dealers. This way families could show off the product of their gardens and give paintings as gifts to distinguish and powerful friends they wanted to please. Some of the painters who found favor with wealthy patrons, Abraham Breughel, Francesco Mantovano and Jean Baptiste Mannoyer.

It was very interesting to see these paintings of flowers and plants we take for granted because they have become common in our gardens today, forgetting that 500 years ago, these flowers and plants had never been seen in Europe and were ''new'' to European eyes.