Lorenzo Delleani (pollone, 1840 - Turin, 1908) Ezzelino Da Romano

Lorenzo Delleani (Pollone, 1840 - Turin, 1908)

Ezzelino da Romano contemplates the massacre of Vicenza

Oil on canvas, cm 146x116

With frame, cm 170 x 140

Signed and dated 1863 in the lower right

Bibliography: "Delleani. The life, the work and its time" by Angelo Dragone, 1973, published with photos in Vol II at n° 29.

Born in Pollone, near Biella, on 17 January 1840, Lorenzo Delleani was trained at the Accademia Albertina of Turin as a student of Cesare Gamba and Carlo Arienti. Initially he joined the Romantic painters and painted historical canvases, often alluding to key facts of the Italian Risorgimento, reporting multiple official awards. Especially during the first season of his artistic work, the romantic one, the Piedmontese participates in a rich range of national and international exhibitions: between the 60s and 90s of the nineteenth century, is assiduously present at the Turin Promoter of Fine Arts - one of the crucial events in the cultural panorama of the newborn kingdom of Italy - presenting mainly historical works with a romantic flavor, including the famous Tasso, Colombo, Cromwell, Corradino di Svevia, Sul molo a Venezia and Lungarno a Firenze while, in 1874, he exhibited at the Salon de Paris two paintings that were very popular and critical success in French land, the Veniero after Lepanto and the Vinti. Since the end of the seventh decade of the nineteenth century, his style has progressively changed, both in terms of means of expression and thematic repertoire, towards a renewed focus on the study of the true landscape, Making canvas with dense colors and bright colors.At the beginning of the eighties, the artist dedicated himself exclusively to an en plein air painting, conducted in fast and dense strokes of color that capture the light, adopting among his favorite subjects views from Piedmont, depicted as the light and seasons vary. Another important theme in the production of Delleani, especially of his maturity, is that of religious processions and popular festivals: attracted by the folklore and spirituality of his native land, the Biella, gives life to images with strong evocative gradient, which will be deeply appreciated by intellectuals and art historians of the first half of the twentieth century, with particular reference to Emilio Cecchi and Anna Maria Brizio, who believes that "the ardor and the expressive modeling" of landscape painting and genre of the artist Piedmont is not equal in what concerns the Italian pictorial panorama of the nineteenth century. In 1883, Delleani went to the Netherlands, with the intention of studying the works of painters of the Golden Age, from which he was attracted by the lively and lavish color, and brought back new creative stimuli: to testify to the Dutch stay of the artist is Amsterdam, Suggestive view of the capital of the Netherlands currently preserved at the GAM in Turin (inv. P/1958). Great friend and frequent the upper-middle class family of Turin Bricherasio - the painter and patron Sofia Bricherasio was one of his favorite students (she could be the woman depicted in La pittrice della GAM di Torino 1881) - Delleani was also witness of a historical event: Emanuele Bricherasio, brother of Sofia, distinguished for his enterprising commitment in the emerging sector of the automotive industry and on 1 July 1899 he summoned to his residence in Turin a group of eminent aristocrats and notables,He was one of the founders of a first company which later took the name F.I.A.T.. Delleani was expressly asked to depict the memorable event and he created a famous painting where Bricherasio is portrayed with the intention of signing the document that elevated him to the position of vice president. Delleani settled permanently in Turin, at the residence of a cousin in via Alfieri, he painted until his death: in 1905, he had completed his last large-scale canvas, La festa di San Barnaba, specially made to be donated to the native village, Pollone: the last painting was executed on September 28, 1908 in Oropa: while performing La svolta, his last view of the Sanctuary of the Black Madonna, the now elderly artist was portrayed by his favorite student, Giuseppe Bozzalla: the painting by Bozzalla is a precious testimony to Delleani’s passion and dedication towards his pictorial work, which he carried out until the end of his days. The monument erected in his honour at the Piazza della Collegiata di Pollone commemorates Delleani, inside which the painter is depicted with the evocative profile of the Sanctuary of Oropa, by Leonardo Bistolfi (1859-1933), of which there is a plaster sketch at the Museum of the Biellese territory of Biella. Since the first decade of the 20th century, Delleani’s work has been particularly appreciated by critics and "experts": the first post-mortem exhibition dedicated to the artist is set up in 1909 as part of the Promoter of Fine Arts of Turin; However, it was in 1940 - the year of the centenary of his birth - the largest exhibition in honor of the painter from Biella: the exhibition, curated by the acclaimed art historian Vittorio Viale and the favorite student of Delleani, Giuseppe Bozzalla, was held at the Turin Press Hall between 10 February and 7 April.n just under thirty days, the event welcomed more than 230,000 visitors, in an "absolute public success" (La Stampa, Sunday, April 7, 1940). In the catalogue of the exhibition of 1940, curated by Marziano Bernardi, the work of Lorenzo Delleani is presented as the "realistic counterpoint" the constant idealization of Antonio Fontanesi and the dark and placid twilight of Vittorio Avondo. Among the 120 works presented at the great exhibition dedicated to the Piedmontese painter there is also Ezzelino da Romano contemplates the massacre of Vicenza: the work, executed in 1863 and presented for the first time on the occasion of the Promoter of Turin of the same year (exposed under no. 218, still visible at the lower right margin of the canvas), presents an iconographic theme absolutely unusual, the destruction of the city of Vicenza - the view that opens behind the characters presents some of the most distinctive buildings of medieval Vicenza, including the Bissara tower, symbol of the city, erected by the noble family Bissari, between 1211 and 1229, the Verlato tower and the Loschi tower - perpetrated by the troops of the Swabian emperor Frederick II. According to what is reported by the chronicler pro-imperial Gerardo Maurisio, it was Ezzelino da Romano who pushed the emperor to attempt to conquer Vicenza: the capture of the city, subjected to a violent and bloody siege that culminated in the night of Ognissanti of 1236, led to the rise of the Roman, who became governor of the Veneto center on behalf of Frederick II, displacing the marquis Azzo II d'Este. It is for this reason that the Roman appears pleased while he observes, clothed in red and dressed in a shining armor under the Loggia del Capitanato, the grim spectacle that will mark the beginning of his climb of socio-political hierarchies. The bright and flamboyant tones of the canvas, as well as the crowded composition of multiple figures and managed on several levels, align and compete with the pictorial pieces of the most prominent figures of Italian romanticism, Francesco Hayez (1791-1882), Giuseppe Molteni  (1800-1867) and Angelo Inganni (1807-1880). A work like this is able to confirm the words of Bernardi, one of the main experts in the painter, who describes Delleani as "the most instinctive and impetuous painter of modern Piedmont".