Giovanni Battista Agucchi

Giovanni Battista Agucchi (20 November 1570, Bologna – 1 January 1632) was an Italian churchman, Papal diplomat and writer on art theory. He was the nephew and brother of cardinals, and might have been one himself if had lived longer. He served as secretary to the Papal Secretary of State, then the Pope himself, on whose death Agucchi was made a titular bishop and appointed as nuncio to Venice. He was an important figure in Roman art circles when he was in the city, promoting fellow-Bolognese artists, and was close to Domenichino in particular. As an art theorist he was rediscovered in the 20th century as having first expressed many of the views better known from the writings of Gian Pietro Bellori a generation later. He was also an amateur astronomer who corresponded with Galileo.

Agucchi came from a noble family of Bologna, where he was born. He began his career in 1580-82 assisting his much older brother Girolamo Agucchi (1555–1605), later briefly a cardinal from 1604-1605, who was governor of Faenza in the Papal States, then studied at Bologna and Rome. He was made a canon of Piacenza Cathedral, then from 1591 worked for his uncle Cardinal Filippo Sega, an important diplomat for the Papacy, accompanying him when Sega was papal nuncio (ambassador) to France, then returning with him to Rome in 1594, and continuing in his service until Sega's death in 1596.

He then followed his brother Girolamo into the service of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, Papal Secretary of State, whose secretary was Girolamo. Aldobrandini was the nephew of Pope Clement VIII (r. 1592-1605). Agucchi accompanied Aldobrandini on his embassies to Florence and France, the latter to negotiate the Treaty of Lyon (1601) and the marriage of Henry IV of France, then in 1604 to Ravenna, where Aldobrandini had been made archbishop, with a trip to Ferrara in the same year. The death of Pope Leo XI and his replacement by Pope Paul V in 1605 meant the loss of papal favour for both men, and Agucchi was able to spend most of his time on his personal interests until 1615, when Aldobrandini returned to favour and office. He was also a protege of the art-loving Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, acting as his secretary.

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