Mario (Mario dei Fiori) Nuzzi

His training is linked to Tomasso Salini, who may have been his uncle. His early specialization in flower paintings led him become that genre's most outstanding proponent in his time. His success is clear in the number of his works listed in the inventories of numerous Roman palaces, as many patrician families enjoyed them. Another substantial part of his production was sent abroad, especially to Spain. His absolute mastery of this genre is also reflected in his expressive sobriquet (Mario dei Fiori). His plant compositions occasionally include figures, which he made in collaboration with artists of the stature of Carlo Maratta. His brilliant technique belongs to the high baroque but he also knew how to reflect the tiny details associated with the early naturalism that he learned from Salini. Despite the extensive production attributed to him, few paintings are indisputably his, and only one, at the Monastery of El Escorial, is actually signed and dated. His works for the Spanish Crown are, in fact, the benchmarks for attributing works to him, as they appear under his name in the earliest inventories. There are as many as seven by him at the Museo del Prado, all from the Royal Collections (García López, D. in: Enciclopedia M.N.P, 2006, vol. V, p. 1635).