Giovanni Battista Bertusio


Giovanni Battista Bertusio was a painter of the early-Baroque period, active in Bologna. He trained initially under Denys Calvaert, then under Ludovico and Agostino Carracci. He married the painter Antonia Pinelli.

Life and work

He was born in Bologna on the 20th of May, 1577: there is little information about his training and his career as an artist. His main biographer is Carlo Cesare Malvasia, who after telling that Bertusio was a pupil of Denis Calvaert, mentioned his training under Agostino Carracci. Bertusio also imitated the art of Guido Reni with unequal forces. The same source informs us that in 1602 he was instructed to read the funeral oration written by Faberio in the death of Agostino Carracci, for "a certain natural eloquence", a quality that certainly favors him in the teaching of painting. He had a reputation and fame with "all the knights of those times".
All the paintings that can be referred to Bertusio are preserved in the churches of Bologna; and among them are the two canvases on the side walls of the Belvisia chapel in St. Paolo Maggiore with the Birth of the Virgin and the Presentation of the Virgin to the Temple. These canvases probably document his earliest activity. But his picture of greater commitment, probably performed around 1630, is the Resurrection of Christ in the church of St. Cristina, where the artist takes advantage of some remembrance of the small Resurrection of young Reni in St. Domenico, but where an incipient adherence to the style of Albani prevails in the figure of Christ.
His other works, still in Bologna, are:
Alongside these famous works, Carlo Cesare Malvasia remembered others in private houses and "in the countryside and in the villages".
Giovanni Bertusio died in Bologna on the 23rd of July 1644.