GIOVANNI, Giulio Bargellini. Painter, born in Florence on 14 February 1875, died in Rome in 1936. Even in times of rampant verism, he remained faithful to a deliberately archaistic painting, boldly decorative through the use of precious chromatic juxtapositions, attributable to the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Noteworthy are his lunettes for the Mole Sacconiana and the frescoes for the Bank of Italy and for the council chamber in the Ministry of Justice in Rome, in which the event of the Lateran Concord is evoked. His major works of sacred art include the Crucifixion of Calenzano (Florence) and the chapel of St John Gualbert in S. Prassede (Rome). The mosaic decoration on the entrance wall of the rebuilt cathedral of Messina was destroyed by the war.
G. Bargellini, Gli affreschi nella sala del Consiglio della Banca d'Italia (relazione), Roma 1924; P. Vittoria, La conciliazione negli affreschi di G. B., in Illustrazione Romana, 1 (1939), pp. 14-17. Corrado Mezzana