The links between devotion, piety and artistic decoration represent one of the distinctive aspects of Bolognese patronage in the modern era. Beginning with the episcopacy of Gabriele Paleotti, and continuing with that of his cousin Alfonso, Bologna became in fact a center for the renewal of social welfare closely tied with the Catholic Reform. With this in mind, the historiography of art – taking Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Felsina Pittrice (1678) into consideration first and foremost – records a portrait of a city receptive to the proposed changes of the time when private individuals were asserting their decision-making autonomy in urban spaces and within new corporate groups. A significant example of this fresh vision is the Opera Pia dei Mendicanti (1560), which was established following an appeal made in the basilica of San Petronio to involve the citizenry in supporting the poor with alms. Painters were actively drawn into the decoration of the new charitable spaces so that the almsgiving would be visible to all; this led to major works of art including Prospero and Lavinia Fontana’s Christ in the House of Mars and Mary (c. 1580) Guido Reni’s Beggars' Altarpiece (1613–1616), and Giacomo Cavedoni’s Blessed Raniero Visits the Sick and Institutes the Hospital (1619–1620).