Luigi Bazzani

Roman fresco with fountain, roosters and herma

Luigi Bazzani was born in Bologna, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. His first steps in the artistic world were taken as a stage designer for the Bologna town theatre in 1857, in notable collaboration with Tito Azzolini and Francesco Bertolotti. He traveled to France and Germany to perfect his art. In 1861, he settled in Rome, where he worked as a decorator, landscape painter and stage designer for the Opera. He worked with Elena Fracassini-Serafini on various interior designs until 1868. He equally distinguished himself with his religious paintings during the Roman Exhibition of Catholic Art in 1870, where he was awarded a medal of encouragement. Pope Pius 9th even commissioned him to decorate the Basilica of San Lorenzo. He painted frescoes for numerous public and private buildings such as the hall of the Palace of Justice in Rome. Towards 1883, he exhibited paintings of Pompeian architecture successively in Rome, Monaco, Berlin and Turin. Each of these compositions of studied perspective and theatrical content was of the finest quality. He studied Pompeian architecture, which he illustrated with precision, as in his series of watercolors painted in 1891 or the paintings he did in 1900, including The House of the Tragic Poet in Pompeii. Each of his representations of Pompeian life is thoroughly researched, which gives his work an almost historical value.