Alfonso Savini | Genre painter

Alfonso Savini (1836-1908) was an Italian painter, mainly of genre and flower paintings.

He was a resident in Bologna, and became professor of the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna.

His father Alfredo Savini (1868-1924) was a Verist painter.

Silvio Allason | Romantic painter

Silvio Allason (1845-1912) was an Italian painter, mainly of landscapes, seascapes and moonlit nocturnes.

He was a resident in Turin.

He first trained with his elder cousin, Ernesto Allason.

He captures on canvas the calm melancholy of the Alps, the terrible impetuosity of the sea, and the landscapes of moonlit nights.

Jacopo Zucchi | L'allegoria della Notte, 1588

"L'allegoria della Notte" di Jacopo Zucchi (1542-1596), è una delle nove tele dello splendido soffitto del Terrazzo delle Carte Geografiche, nel primo corridoio degli Uffizi a Firenze.

Fra le ombre della notte, al chiarore della luna, tutto può accadere.

Una dama alata, dalla carnagione eburnea, culla i suoi figli sopra una nube in un cielo stellato.

Uno di loro gioca con la falce del tempo.

Jacopo Zucchi | Allegoria della Notte, 1588 | Soffitto del Terrazzo delle Carte Geografiche, Gallerie degli Uffizi

Sebastiano Ricci | Baroque painter

Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) was born in Belluno. At the age of fourteen, Sebastiano Ricci left his birthplace for Venice, where he soon entered the studio of Federico Cervelli (1625 - before 1700), a Milanese painter active there since the mid-1650s.

While contemporary biographers sometimes discounted Sebastiano's debt to Cervelli, modern scholars generally agree that the Milanese master gave him solid practical instruction and introduced him to the Venetian painters of the seventeenth century.

Mario Puccini | The Italian van Gogh

Mario Puccini (1869, Livorno - 1920, Florence) was an Italian Post-Macchiaioli painter, who specialized in landscapes and village scenes.

He was sometimes referred to as "The Italian Van Gogh".

His father was a baker. He worked in his father's bakery and sketched as a hobby until his talent was noticed by Giovanni Fattori, who encouraged him to enroll at the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence, which he did, against parental objections, in 1884 when he was only fifteen.

Oreste Cortazzo | Painter of the Belle Époque

Oreste Cortazzo (1836, Rome - 1910, Paris) was an Italian-born French painter, graphic artist and illustrator.

His family originally came from Ceraso, in the Province of Salerno.

Around 1848, he began an apprenticeship with his father, Michele (1808-1865), who was also a painter and a great admirer of Titian. (Some of Michele's works may be seen at the Palace of Caserta, near Naples.)

Ludovico Marchetti | Genre painter

Ludovico Marchetti (Rome, 1853-1909, Paris) was an Italian-born painter of genre scenes, who spent most of his life in France.

His artistic education began in the studios of Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish painter who lived in Rome during the 1870s.

Shortly after completing his studies there, in 1878, aged twenty-five, he moved to France, where he would remain for the rest of his life.

Giuseppe Barison | Genre painter

Giuseppe Barison (1853-1931) was a Triestiner painter and engraver, active in Venice.

He was born in Trieste, Austrian Empire to a family of modest means.

His father was a tailor. Barison found a patron in the aristocratic Anna De Rin, who placed him in apprenticeship with the painter Carl Haase (1820-1876) in Trieste, and then enrolled him in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Elia Volpi (1858-1938)

Elia Volpi (1858-1938) was an Italian art dealer, antiques dealer and painter, famous for having created the collection of Palazzo Davanzati in Florence.

Born in Città di Castello, Volpi was a well known antiquarian who collected many important works of art, now widely dispersed especially in U.S.A.

Volpi studied at the Florence Academy, under A. Gatti.

Alfredo Savini | Verist painter

Alfredo Savini (1868-1924) was an Italian painter.

Son of the painter Alfonso Savini (1836-1908), Alfredo Savini attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna.

In 1900 he was appointed, by competition, director of the "Gian Bettino Cignaroli" Academy of Fine Arts in Verona, succeeding Moses Bianchi, and held this position until 1924, when, still in full activity, he died on 28 October.

Lucio Massari | Madonna of the Laundry, 1620

"Mary washed, Joseph laid... "

The subject of this painting really seems to illustrate the famous lullaby your grandparents or parents used to sing to you when you were a child.

You know, no one can escape household affairs, not even Joseph, Mary and Jesus!

The scene depicted by the Bolognese painter Lucio Massari (1568-1633) is in fact very unusual: every member of the Sacraiglia works with commitment and organization to clean and iron the laundry.

Lucio Massari Holy Family (Madonna of the Laundry), 1620 | Galleria degli Uffizi, Firenze

Marco Ricci | Baroque painter

Marco Ricci (1676-1730) was an Italian painter of the Baroque period.

Early years

He was born at Belluno and received his first instruction in art from his uncle, Sebastiano Ricci, likely in Milan in 1694-6.

He left for Venice with his uncle in 1696, but had to flee the city.

He visited Rome, where he was for some time occupied in painting perspective views.

Carla Accardi | Abstract painter

From 6 March to 9 June 2024, Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome dedicates an important retrospective to Carla Accardi on the anniversary of her birth, 1924-2024.

A figure of undisputed prominence on the international panorama, Carla Accardi (Trapani, 1924 - Rome, 2014) was a major player in the visual culture both of Italy and abroad.

Whilst maintaining a singular and exceptional expressive coherence in her work, Accardi contributed to the emergence and development of new ways of understanding the artwork, from the Abstraction of the immediate post-War years to Informal, Conceptual painting, Environment Painting, to art influenced by feminism, the rediscovered joie de vivre embodied in the painting of the 1980s, right up to the grandiose synthesis of her work in the 1990s and 2000s.

Bernardo Bellotto | Veduta painter

Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780) was an Italian urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching famous for his vedute of European cities - Dresden, Vienna, Turin and Warsaw.

He was the student and nephew of the renowned Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto and sometimes used the latter's illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto.

Raphael | The Mond Crucifixion, 1502-3

"The Crucified Christ with the Virgin Mary, Saints and Angels" or "The Mond Crucifixion" is an oil painting on wood (279x166 cm) by Italian Renaissance artist Raphael (1483-1520), datable to 1502-1503 and preserved in the National Gallery in London.

One of Raphael’s earliest works, this altarpiece was commissioned by the wool merchant and banker Domenico Gavari for his burial chapel dedicated to Saint Jerome in the church of S. Domenico in Città di Castello, Umbria.

Raphael | The Mond Crucifixion, 1502-3 | National Gallery, London

Vasari racconta Properzia de' Rossi, la prima Scultrice in Europa

Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) - il pittore e l'architetto che inventò la Storia dell'Arte - nel suo Trattato delle "Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, et architettori", racconta, analizza e commenta anche la vita e l'opera della "femmina scultora" (come la chiama lui), la Madonna Properzia de' Rossi (1490-1530), considerata la prima donna scultrice nella storia dell’arte, nonché una delle quattro artiste donne ad avere una biografia all’interno delle Vite di Vasari.

Ritratto Muliebre - Properzia De' Rossi | Scuola bolognese | Galleria Borghese

Marcella Giulia Pace, 1975 | 48 Colors of the Moon

Marcella Giulia Pace was born in Ragusa on the island of Sicily. She teaches at primary school in Cortina d’Ampezzo (Veneto).

In 2011, the italian Ministry of Public Administration presented her with an award for innovation in teaching.

She pursues various passion which are remote from each other only at cursory glance: astronomy, mountains, music, optical illusions as well as skill and logic games.

Teodoro Duclère | Veduta painter

Carlo Teodoro Duclère (Naples, 1812-1869) was an Italian landscape painter, associated with the School of Posillipo.

His father, Jacques-François Théodore Duclère, born around 1788, was from Seine-et-Marne, France, and came to Italy during the Napoleonic Wars.

He met and married Teodoro's future mother, Costanza Lepori, in Rome and they settled in Naples, where he took a job as a customs officer.

Pasolini, la Callas e l'Amore impossibile | Le Lettere

Quando Pier Paolo Pasolini (Scrittore, poeta, autore e regista cinematografico e teatrale italiano, 1922-1975) incontra Maria Callas (Soprano americana di origine greca, uno dei cantanti lirici più famosi ed influenti del 20° secolo, 1923-1977) per la prima volta era il 1969 e stava lavorando al suo nuovo film "Medea".

Lui ricorda così la prima volta che la vide: "Una straordinaria apparizione fisica, con quei grandi occhi in un volto dagli zigomi alti, dai lineamenti e dalle espressioni che rientrano perfettamente nella mia mitologia fisionomica".

Pier Paolo Pasolini e Maria Callas sul set del film "Medea"

Attilio Simonetti | Neo-Pompeian painter

Attilio Simonetti (1843-1925) was an Italian painter and Antiquarian.

He was born and resided mainly in Rome: a son of Francesco, a Roman jeweler and engraver, and Carolina née Raffaeli, from a family of mosaicists.

He showed a talent for art at an early age, which brought him to the attention of a family friend, the painter Marià Fortuny.

At the age of sixteen, he began his formal studies.