GAGLIARDI, PIETRO. — Painter, born in Rome in 1809, died in Frascati on 18 September 1890. He is among the most characteristic representatives of the Roman academic taste, which asserted itself after the purist movement. Correct in drawing and precise in outlines, he painted several fine portraits and a very large number of frescoes, as well as some sacred subjects, using colours of a somewhat acid and cloying tone, and placing his figures in affected or conventional poses.
He painted extensively in fresco in the churches of Rome, where his masterpiece is considered to be the Crucifixion in the church of S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni, in which other compositions are also by his hand (1847-1852). Subsequently, he worked in S. Paolo fuori le Mura, depicting the Conversion of the Saint, and H. Saint present at the martyrdom of St Stephen.
In 1868 he painted, again in Rome, in S. Agostino, as a counterpart to Raphael’s Sibyl, five further figures of prophets and various sacred scenes. He also painted frescoes in S. Maria in Aquino, S. Marcello, the church of the Spirito Santo dei Napoletani, S. Quirico e Giustina, S. Vito, etc. Outside Rome he worked in Vigevano, where his works can be found in the Duomo, in the church of the Sacramentine, in S. Francesco, in the church and monastery of the Maddalena. He also worked in Castel Gandolfo in the Villa Torlonia, in the Constantinian Basilica of Albano, and in Frascati for the Shakespearean Gallery of Romualdo Gentilecci.
GAGINI, FABRICIA — Statue of St Lucy by Antonello G. Straccula, Cathedral.
He executed statues and reliefs in a style reminiscent of Francesco Laurana. Among his best-known works are the baptismal font of Salemi, the Madonna of Castelverde (1480), the ark of St Gandolfo in Polizzi Generosa, and some reliefs in S. Francesco in Palermo. More famous but less gifted was his son, Antonello, born in Palermo in 1478 and died there in 1536 after an extremely intense activity, largely carried out in Messina and head of a large workshop of sculptors who equipped hundreds of Sicilian churches with their images of the Virgin and saints, modelled with composure but cloying monotony.
Other sculptors of the Sicilian branch of the family are ANTONIO, GIACOMO and VINCENZO, sons of Antonello, as well as an ANTONIOZZO DI GIOVANNI DOMENICO, and a NIBILIO, the latter a sculptor and goldsmith who lived between the 16th and 17th centuries and left the ark of St John in S. Giacomo in Caltagirone.