In seventeenth-century Florence, there was considerable interest in contemporary easel paintings and mural decorations specifically from Bologna and generally from the entire Emilian region. The interest of the Medici in Bolognese painting surpassed their attention to works from Naples, Genoa, or Lombardy and contributed to creating the nucleus of their significant collection of Bolognese pictures.

As recent studies have shown, the quadratura painters Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli had a continuing relationship with the court of the Medici grand duke and his entourage, a relation that, in the case of Colonna, lasted for thirty years. The two painters made their Florentine debut in 1634, together with Francesco Albani, decorating a room in the Medicean Villa di Mezzomonte owned by Prince Giovancarlo de’ Medici (Plate 9), competing against a team of Florentine artists composed of Bartolomeo Neri, Baccio del Bianco, and Giovanni da San Giovanni. The Bolognese proved superior in the execution of the architectural frame and were also assigned the task of decorating the three main rooms in the summer apartment of the Grand Duke Ferdinando II in Palazzo Pitti (1637–41). The first of these rooms had already begun to be decorated by Giovanni da San Giovanni, but work had stopped following his death in December 1636. With these initial successes, Bolognese quadratura began to make a name for itself in Florence, giving rise to a lively local school. Colonna and Mitelli collaborated on many residences in the city and in the surrounding area, not only for various members of the Medici family (Ferdinando II and his brothers Giovancarlo and Mattias), but also for that of the Niccolini, who were closely connected to the Medici grand ducal dynasty.