The Bolognese School or the School of Bologna of painting flourished in Bologna, the capital of Emilia Romagna, between the 16th and 17th centuries in Italy, and rivalled Florence and Rome as the center of painting. Its most important representatives include the Carracci family, including Ludovico and his two cousins, the brothers Agostino and Annibale. Later it included other prominent Baroque painters: Domenichino and Lanfranco, active mostly in Rome as would be Guercino and Guido Reni. Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna run by Lodovico Carracci.Certain artistic conventions, which over time became traditionalist, had been developed in Rome during the first decades of the 16th century. As time progressed, some artists sought new approaches to their work that no longer reflected only the Roman manner. The Carracci studio sought innovation or invention, that is, new ways to break away from those traditional modes of painting while in respects continuing to look for inspiration from their literary contemporaries, a style that was distinguished from the recognized manners of art in their time. The style was seen as systematic and imitative in that it borrowed particular motifs from the past Roman schools of art, yet innovative in taking its modernistic approach.
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Francis P. Smyth and John P. O'Neill (Editors in Chief (1986). National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. ed. The Age of Correggio and the Carracci: Emilian Painting of the 16th and 17th Centuries.