Giovanni Battista Paggi, a dynamic and avant-garde figure for his century, was born in Genoa in 1554 from a noble family. Son of a merchant “art not unseemly to the Genoese nobility…. in the childish age applied by the Father to the study of letters, he gave them the first essays of his rare talent ....... and from his beautiful genius he also felt himself in the exercise of the Arts of design ... "[Soprani / Ratti, p.113] The father was anxious that his son attend to the marking so the young man devoted himself to the study of Arithmetic obtaining at least the permission to play musical instruments; but passion is passion and so & quo