Pietro Antonio Novelli (Venice, Italy 1729 – 1804)  

Born in Venice in 1729 to Francesco, the son of Giambattista, a noble from Treviso, and Caterina Pedrini. Following the early death of his father, the abbot Pietro Antonio Toni took charge of his education, training him in music and art. 

After having copied drawings by Guido Reni for years, he continued his education by studying at the Academy of Nudes and attended the studios of the most famous Venetian painters so that, as Novelli himself wrote, “by watching them work, I learnt the various ways of composing hues and handling brushes”. 

He became a professor in 1754, and then a member of the Venetian Academy in 1768. He dedicated himself to an intense pictorial activity, focused on the illustration of books.  

He took important trips to Bologna in 1773 and Rome in 1779, where he encountered the neo-classical artworks that defined his style, making it more composed but less imaginative.  

The large artworks of these years, mostly frescos with a few altarpieces, are influenced by the Venetian Rococo, resulting from the time passed with Jacopo Amigoni.  

Active until a few years before his death, though his fatigue was evident in his last artworks, he died in his city in 1804. 

 Photo UniCredit Group (Sebastiano Pellion di Persano)