Giovanni Mannozzi, known as Giovanni da San Giovanni (San Giovanni Valdarno 1592 – Florence 1636) was considered by his contemporaries an excellent teacher and fresco painter. When he was a child he showed an inclination for the painting, so to escape from San Giovanni Valdarno in 1608, abandoning his ecclesiastical studies and went to Florence,as a student at the workshop of his teacher Matteo Rosselli, where he specialized in the construction of the human figures. According to his biographer Filippo Baldinucci, the painter led a very extravagant life and he had an high ability of concentration.
At the age of twenty he was accepted by the Academy of Arts and Design. He shows predilection for the contemporary artists, particularly for these of the Venetian school and he is sensitive to Callot’s work of art. Mannozzi immediately distinguishes himself for works of art of decorative subject. In 1619 he works at the Pala with the torture of S.Biagio in Montepulciano, then at the Antella in Santa Croce square. In 1620 he paints the “Carità” at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova. From 1621 to 1627 he is in Rome where he maintains relations with refined and intelligent buyers. In 1628 he is in Reggio Emilia, in 1629 comes back in Florence where he works at the Badia al Settimo and at the Badia Fiesolana. During his latest years, the commissions entrusted to him are multiple; among these there are the decorations of the ground floor lounge of Pitti Palace.