The recent publication of Collezionismo d’arte in Romagna in età moderna, a collection of essays on private collecting in Romagna between the seventeenth and nineteenth century, has focused attention on a complex and varied phenomenon that deserves to be further explored. A renewed interest in art collections in the area of Imola, Faenza, Forlì, and Ravenna, sparked by a series of documentary studies on public and private archives that brought to light inventories, letters, and lists of art objects, allows scholars to study previously unexplored areas, identify the peculiarities of private collections, and ultimately arrive at new and original interpretations. Beginning with the most important cases, the goal has been to reconstruct the characteristics of individual collections, the ways they were formed, the spaces in which they were displayed, and the circumstances of their dispersal.

Scholars have demonstrated the existence of important collections from the early years of the seventeenth century, especially in Forlì, enabling us to map a rich and widespread taste for art objects that particularly favored Bolognese artists. In the present essay, I examine in particular the case of the Albicini family, who held the title of marquis and were the owners, in the words of Joseph Jérôme de Lalande – who visited Forlì at the very end of the eighteenth century – of ‘a superbly furnished apartment’ (‘un appartement meublé superbement’) with works of great quality and value that set them apart from those typically found in small towns. The Albicini's desire to improve the image of their family, after the important position gained with the title of marquis, which Ranuccio Farnese gave to the family in 1653, also took the form of a constant investment in artworks.