Paolo Troubetzkoy | Sculptor of the Belle Époque

The Italian sculptor and painter Paolo (prince) Troubetzkoy / Павел Петрович Трубецкой (1866-1938), born on the shores of Lake Maggiore, was the illegitimate child of a Russian diplomat and an American pianist and singer, living under an assumed identity until he was acknowledged with his brothers at the age of five.

He would succeed in transforming the circumstances of his birth into assets that would lead to a dazzling international career.

Boccaccio Boccaccino | Early Renaissance painter

Boccaccio Boccaccino (1467-1525) was a painter of the early Italian Renaissance, belonging to the Emilian school. He is profiled in Vasari's "Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori" (or, in English, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects).

He was born in Ferrara and studied there, probably under Domenico Panetti.

Few facts of his life are known.

Giuseppe De Nittis | Impressionist painter

Giuseppe De Nittis (1846-1884) - printmaker, painter and draughtsman.

Born in Barletta in Apulia, De Nittis received his first artistic training from Giambattista Calò, a local painter, before moving to Naples in 1861 to attend the Istituto di Belle Arti.

He was expelled in 1863 for failing to conform to academic practice.

At that time, De Nittis' main interest was in experimenting with plein air painting.

Moses Levy | Post-Macchiaioli painter

Moses Levy (Tunisi, 1885 - Viareggio, 1968) was born in Tunis of a British father and an Italian mother.

His son is the Tunisian-based painter Nello Levy.

Moses trained in Italy - in Lucca, Florence and the studio of Giovanni Fattori - and was subsequently active in Viareggio.

He spent almost the whole of his life in Tunisia, but continued to travel frequently between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.

He was a member of the Group of Four in Tunis in 1936, and the Group of Ten in 1947.

Silvestro Lega | Macchiaioli painter

Italian painter Silvestro Lega (1826-1895) was one of the leading artists of the Macchiaioli and was also involved with the Mazzini movement.

Lega was born in Modigliana, near Forlì, to an affluent family.

From 1838 he attended the Piarist College, where his skill at drawing became evident.

From 1843-1847 he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, studying drawing under Benedetto Servolini (1805-79) and Tommaso Gazzarini (1790-1853), then studying painting, briefly, under Giuseppe Bezzuoli.

Antonio Ermolao Paoletti | Genre painter

Antonio Ermolao Paoletti (Venice, May 8, 1834 - Venice, December 13, 1912) was an Italian painter, mainly of Venetian genre scenes, recalling Bamboccianti life of children and women, as well as sacred fresco work for churches in the Veneto.

Antonio's father, Ermolao Paoletti, was a well known scholar and writer of Venice.

He wrote a much cited expansive guide to its architecture, monuments, artistic works, and customs.

Happy Valentine's Day 💕 | La storia di San Valentino 💕

Saint Valentine, officially known as Saint Valentine of Rome, is a third-century Roman saint widely celebrated on February 14 and commonly associated with "courtly love".

At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February.

One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city.

Cesare Maggi | At least there's fire! / Almeno c'è il fuoco! 1898

An early work by Italian divisionist painter Cesare Maggi (1881-1961), "At least there's fire!" - signed and dated "Firenze 1898"- was one of two exhibited by the artist, not yet eighteen, at the fifty-second annual exhibition of the Society of Fine Arts in Florence (1898-1899).