Published in 1678 by Carlo Cesare Malvasia in his Felsina Pittrice, a collection of biographies of Bolognese painters, il Ristretto de’ Successi is a  celebratory memoir of Guercino’s career, compiled with the contribution of his nephews and heirs, Benedetto and Cesare Gennari, who delivered the testimony to the historiographer so that he could use it as the core of his biography of the artist.

Thanks to sporadic meetings with the Centese painter, Malvasia was able to amplify the news in the Ristretto with valuable anecdotes and circumstantial information, interpolated to the text provided to him by the Gennaris.

If in the Book of Accounts, the real accounting ledger of the Barbieri firm, first Paolo Antonio and then Guercino and Benedetto II accurately noted the workshop’s orders and earnings, in the Ristretto de’ Successi the nephews listed their uncle’s major artistic enterprises, taking care not to report their uncle’s lavish fees.

Malvasia 1678, II, p. 374

«Fece la tavola dell’altar maggiore con la Circoncisione di N.S. (Nostro Signore) nella Chiesa delle Monache di Gesù Maria in Bologna; col Dio Padre sopra, che fu fatto a lume di torchio la notte antecedente al giorno, che fu posto a suo luogo per la Festa di quella Chiesa, essendogli riuscito il già fatto di straordinaria grandezza […]»