Who loves walking around the area of Piazza di Spagna is likely that knows or has passed often to “Via Mario de ‘Fiori”, 
one of the first cross that depart from Via Condotti. No one pays particular attention to the name of this street, figuring that evidently is dedicated to some famous ladies of the family “De Fiori.” But the place names of the streets of Rome, especially in the historic center, often reveal some curiosity. In fact, it must be said that in the second half of 1600 in this street there lived a certain Mario Nuzzi, a decent painter originally from Abruzzo, but he specialized in portraying a single subject … You already know what we’re talking about: the flowers! For the Romans, always witty spirit, having evidently no desire to remember the name of the painter, preferred affibbiargli a name, and the result then is that the painter was known to all as the Mario “flowers.”
It must be said that, although his paintings were of great art, the colors used were obviously of poor quality, because with time many of them graying or any painting in many cases, completely ruined. All too easy to understand the joke circulating in Rome: “the flowers painted by Mario withered like the real ones!” ( “li fiori dipinti da Mario se sò ammosciati come quelli veri”! )
This is why today the paintings that you “save” our dear Mario are not many, and this has helped to increase the value in the collectors.