Il Sassoferrato: Devout Beauty reconstructs, for the first time, the creative process of Giovan Battista Salvi, known as Sassoferrato (1609-85), from drawing to finished work. Living in Baroque-era Rome but keeping his distance from contemporary trends, Sassoferrato worked in the spirit of a craftsman, creating devotional images for the Counter-Reformation market with such pure intensity that he earned himself the title "pictor virginum."

The studies presented in this volume examine how Sassoferrato developed his sparse, archaizing style, the patrons he served and the extent of his influence in the artistic debates of the 19th century (favored by the Purists and Nazarenes and critiqued by John Ruskin, Sassoferrato's pictures found new life). Il Sassoferrato charts the painter's trajectory and his forging, via the example of Raphael, of a unique style as far removed from Baroque theatricality as it was from Caravaggio-esque naturalism.