Baldassare Verazzi
Encyclopedia
Caprezzo
Caprezzo is a comune in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 120 km northeast of Turin and about 6 km northeast of Verbania...
, Verbano-Cusio-Ossola
Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola
Verbano-Cusio-Ossola is the northernmost province in the Italian region of Piedmont. It was created in 1996 through the fusion of three distinct regions which had previously been part of the Province of Novara...
, Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
- 18 January 1886, Lesa
Lesa
Lesa is a comune in the Province of Novara in the Italian region of Piedmont, located about 110 km northeast of Turin and about 45 km north of Novara...
) was an Italian painter.
Life
He studied at the Academy of Brera at Milan from 1833 to 1842, then under the Venetian Romantic painter Francesco HayezFrancesco Hayez
Francesco Hayez was an Italian painter, the leading artist of Romanticism in mid-19th-century Milan, renowned for his grand historical paintings, political allegories and exceptionally fine portraits.-Biography:...
(1791 - 1882) in 1851, and participated in several exhibitions in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
.
He took his inspiration from history (painting a fresco on The life of Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
) and religion (The Holy Family
Holy Family
The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph.The Feast of the Holy Family is a liturgical celebration in the Roman Catholic Church in honor of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and his foster father, Saint Joseph, as a family...
in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, the 1851 The parable of the Samaritan and the 1854 Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
presented by Bramante to pope Julius II
Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II , nicknamed "The Fearsome Pope" and "The Warrior Pope" , born Giuliano della Rovere, was Pope from 1503 to 1513...
). His masterpiece (now at the Museum of the Risorgimento
Museum of the Risorgimento (Milan)
The Museum of the Risorgimento , located in the eighteenth-century Milanese Palazzo Moriggia, houses a collection of objects and artworks which illustrate the history of Italian unification from Napoleon's first Italian campaign of 1796 to the annexation of Rome in 1870...
in Milan) is considered to be Episodio delle Cinque Giornate (Combattimento a Palazzo Litta) - known in English as Episode from the Five Days
Five Days of Milan
The Five Days of Milan was a major event in the Revolutionary Year of 1848 and the start of the First Italian War of Independence. On March 18th, the city of Milan, rose, and in five days of street fighting drove Marshal Radetzky and his men from the city....
(Fighting at Palazzo Litta).
Heavily involved in the Risorgimento, he was hunted down by the Austrian
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
authorities in 1848 and forced to live under severe proscriptions. He left for Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
in 1856, where he taught (the Argentine painter Cándido López
Cándido López
Cándido López was an Argentine painter and soldier. Born in Buenos Aires, he is considered one of Argentina's most important artists. He is most famous for his detailed paintings and drawings of battles of the War of the Triple Alliance, in which he also fought, losing his right arm...
was his student) and painted local personalities, scenes of everyday life and history paintings of political or military events. He returned to Italy and installed himself near Lake Maggiore
Lake Maggiore
Lake Maggiore is a large lake located on the south side of the Alps. It is the second largest of Italy and largest of southern Switzerland. Lake Maggiore is the most westerly of the three great prealpine lakes of Italy, it extends for about 70 km between Locarno and Arona.The climate is mild...
, and the landscape of that area proved a new source of inspiration for paintings that he then produced with his son Serafino (1875 - 1945).