Giuseppe Zocchi

1717 – 1767

Italian painter and printmaker. He began his training in Florence. The Marchese Andrea Gerini took him under his protection from an early age, sending him to Rome, Bologna, Milan and Venice to continue his studies. In Venice Zocchi saw engravings of views by Michele Marieschi and Bernardo Bellotto and painted a small oval portrait of Andrea Gerini and Antonio Maria Zanetti (1750 or 1751; Venice, Correr). Zanetti was a Venetian connoisseur and a friend of Gerini. He was a painter as well as a draughtsman, he was the official designer for the Pietre Dure (the so-called "Florentine mosaic") factory in Florence from 1754 to 1760. What Francesco Guardi and Canaletto did for Venice and Giovanni-Battista Piranesi did for Rome, Giuseppe Zocchi did for Florence. The Marchese Andrea Gerini commissioned Zocchi to record all the greatest landmarks in Florence and its environs, which he did in a series of drawings that are now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. These drawings were translated into engravings by Zocchi and a number of other engravers and issued in two series in 1744 titled 'Scelta XXIV vedute delle principali contrade, piazze, chiese, e palazzi della citta di Firenze' and 'Vedute delle ville e d'altri luoghi della Toscana'.

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