MACCARI, CESARE. — Painter, born in Siena on 9 May 1840, died in Rome on 7 August 1919.
In his homeland he was successively a pupil of the sculptor T. Sarrocchi and the painter Luigi Mussini, then he went to Venice and Rome where he began his successful career as a fresco painter, decorating the vault of the church of the Sudario with the glory of the five Blesseds of the House of Savoy and the Choir with the Meeting of St. Francis de Sales with the Venerable Ancia and St. Anselm at the Council of Bari.
In 1882 M. undertook another large decorative work, the frescoes in the Senate chamber depicting scenes from ancient Roman history and the allegory of the Triumph of Italy. The work lasted six years, during which M. also painted frescoes in the church of the Consolazione in Genoa, in the Sala Vittorio Emanuele of the Public Palace in Siena, and in the chapels of the Franchi and Piccolomini families in the cemetery of the Misericordia, as well as in that of the Sacrament in S. Domenico in the same city. Once this important cycle of paintings was completed—works in which his strong temperament, his great skill as a draftsman and colorist, which at times seems to hark back to the best Italian decorative tradition of the 18th century, were fully expressed—M. in 1888 began his major work: the decoration of the dome of the Basilica of the Holy House in Loreto, where the Virgin is glorified in the depiction of the Litany.
M. also painted other frescoes in the hall of the Court of Cassation in the Palace of Justice in Rome and then in the choir of the cathedral of Nardò in Calabria (1906–1908). He also produced easel paintings and portraits, in which the acute veristic taste of his time, of which he was one of the leading representatives, did not prevent him, as in his great fresco cycles, from achieving outstanding results in terms of balance and harmony of form and color.