Tommaso Minardi

Tommaso Minardi (December 4, 1787 – January 12, 1871) was an Italian painter and author on art theory, active in Faenza, Rome, Perugia, and other towns. He painted in styles that transitioned from Neoclassicism to Romanticism.

Minardi was born in Faenza to father Carlo, a pharmacist and mother, Rosa Stanghellini of Marradi. He initially had some instruction in Faenza with Giuseppe Zauli. Zauli and a local erudite writer, Dionigi Strocchi, helped him obtain from 1803 to 1810 a scholarship from a religious fraternity of Faenza, called the Congregation of San Gregorio. Strocchi wrote him letters of introduction in Rome to Prince Chigi. In 1810, he won a competition and a stipend from the Accademia di Belle Arti of Bologna. In Rome, his detailed engravings of masterworks, such as one of Michelangelo's Last Judgement, brought him praise. He briefly spent time with the engraver Longhi in Milan, then returned to Rome. There he briefly joined the studio of Vincenzo Camuccini, a premier Neoclassic artist in Rome. Minardi became one of the leaders of a movement known as Purismo, who assembled in Rome between about 1810 and 1815.

In 1819 he moved to Perugia, to join the Accademia di Belle Arti as the professor of drawing and was soon promoted to director. A post to which he was recommended by Canova His skill as a draughtsman gained him the appointment in 1822 as professor of drawing at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, replacing the recently deceased Luigi Agricola. He was to remain in Rome for thirty years in this position. In Rome, he accumulated a number of honors, and was named knight and Commendatore of the Ordine Piano, and gran commendatore of the Corona d'Italia. He was named inspector of public pictures, and to a number of commissions relating to art, as well as other art societies, including the Virtuosi of the Pantheon. He was named honorary member of a number of Art Academies across Europe.

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