A sibyl with a putto holding a scroll; The Samian Sibyl; The Persian Sibyl; and A sibyl with a putto holding a book

We are grateful to Professor Daniele Benati for proposing the attribution to Giovanni Girolamo Bonesi on the basis of photographs. To date there is little published work on Bonesi, who was a pupil of Giovanni Maria Viani (1636-1700), though pictures by him can be seen in the Ritiro San Pellegrino, Bologna and in the church of the Gesù in Cingoli, in the Marches, where he was commissioned to paint the altarpiece with Saint Teresa of Ávila. This monumental set of sibyls, which are thought to have once formed part of the decoration of Palazzo Aldrovandi Montanari in Bologna, hanging around the scala monumentale, show the influence of Lorenzo Pasinelli in the drawing of their faces, and in their grandeur they echo the previous generation of Bolognese masters, notably Domenichino and Guercino.