Mario Salmi was born on June 14, 1889 in San Giovanni Valdarno (Firenze). He completed his laurea thesis in Law at the University of Pisa in 1910 about the problems of the protection of the artistic heritage in Italy. Then he specialized in art history at the Sapienza University of Rome. He was appointed professor of art history first at the University of Pisa, where he established the Istituto di Storia dell’Arte, which opened in 1929, then at the University of Florence, where he founded the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento in 1937. From 1950 to 1964, he was professor of art history at the University of Rome, where he primarily taught Renaissance and Medieval art but also, for some years, modern art.
Salmi’s work was mainly focused on Romanesque art and Renaissance art, with a particular fondness for the work of Piero della Francesca. However, apart from these main areas of interest, he ranged over a much wider field of art historical studies, from early Christian art to Baroque art, even managing to focus his interest on areas and periods hitherto neglected or undervalued by most other critics, such as Coptic art. In 1952, he founded the Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo. Always critical in his approach, he also put his attention to the so-called minor arts.
In 1949, Salmi established the art review journal «Commentari». He was also supervisor of the 15-volumes Enciclopedia Universale dell’Arte, published from 1958 to 1967, which was soon translated into English as The Encyclopedia of World Art.
His papers and photographs collection are held at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. Mario Salmi died on November 16, 1980 in Rome.