Of the almost 200 letters by Francesco Albani (Bologna, 1578–1660) that the historian Carlo Cesare Malvasia possessed and used to reconstruct the life of the painter in his Felsina pittrice (1678), not all are lost. A sizeable corpus of thirty-five letters still survives in libraries, private collections, foundations, and museums in Europe and the U.S.; the letters span a period from 1637 to 1659, the final period of Albani's long life.

The present study takes these letters into account, combining them with those cited by Malvasia but now lost: spanning about twenty-five years, this correspondence interweaves personal information with diverse considerations of seventeenth-century Bologna and the main figures of the city; comments on ancient and modern Bolognese painting, which Albani knows well and describes in detail; weaves together the memories of his patrons and collectors; and sends messages and greetings, which are returned affectionately and deferentially. These all came from his home workshop in the little square of Santa Barbara in Bologna, in the parish of San Pietro Maggiore, or from the school where he taught painting near his home, under the vaulted Pollaroli archway (neither the square nor the archway are still extant): a gathering place for painters and collectors, Bolognese and foreign.3 The results of this study have a proper place in the history of seventeenth-century art, offering a firsthand account of the history of painting in Bologna and Rome, and helping to answer many unsolved questions on artistic developments of the time.