Giovanni Battista Viola

Who was Giovanni Battista Viola?

Giovanni Battista Viola was an Italian painter of the early Baroque period in Rome.

Giovanni was born in Bologna. His skills were initially noticed by Annibale Carracci. He collaborated with Domenichino in the Room of Appollo in Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati, where Viola painted the landscpapes and Domenichino, the figures. He appears to have worked for the Giustiniani in Bassano di Sutra. In 1612, he was sharing a house with Francesco Albani. In 1612, Viola married Silvia Gemelli, who was already mother to an Anna Gemelli, who in turn married Albani. Hence, Albani was Viola's stepson-in-law. Giulio Mancini commented in his writings that Viola was well respected for his landscape canvases, which were annotated as present in the collections of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, Giustiniani, Cardinal Mazarin, and the Pamphilj. Louis XIV of France collected at least landscapes, now in the Louvre. He was a teacher of Bartolommeo Lotto and Pietro Paolo Bonzi, and would have been influential for Claude Lorraine. The biography of Amorini recounts that Viola died mortified after offending the Cardinal Ludovisi.