Giacomo, Giovanni Battista and Pier Francesco Mola

The research project is dedicated to the Mola, a family of artists from Coldrerio in the Canton Ticino, and is the result of a number of preliminary studies on the multifaceted artistic career of the painter Pier Francesco Mola (1612-1666). With his father and architect Giovanni Battista (1586-1665), Pier Francesco and his entire family relocated in 1616 from their Swiss Italian hometown Coldrerio to Baroque Rome. The continuous intellectual and artistic exchanges, from the early 1630s until the mid-1660s, between father and son, in particular, and other family members in general, are in some ways unique and highly illuminating in relation to seventeenth-century art and architecture. Although theMola family seems very well documented in the archives, no attempt has yet been made to analyse all these sources within the framework of an inter-disciplinary study while examining the synergies between the various members of the Mola family. Especially challenging are the exchanges between the somewhat eclectic father, Giovanni Battista, who was eager to continuously expand and expose his knowledge about art, and the more introverted, eccentric, yet immensely talented painter son, Pier Francesco. The project aims to explore these issues and shed new light on this unique artistic interconnection.