Amedeo Modigliani was born in Italy in the Livorno ghetto in 1884. His father, a ruined banker, died young and his mother, a descendant of the Dutch philosopher, Spinoza, encouraged…

Michelangelo Buonarroti Born in Caprese, near Florence, in 1475, this magnificent artist and sculptor transformed blocks of marble into figures full of life. His immortal works include the Sistine Chapel…

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi (c. 1386 – December 13, 1466), better known as Donatello, was an early Renaissance sculptor from Florence. He studied classical sculpture, and used this…

Michelagniolo di Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarroti Simone was born in Caprese in Tuscany in 1475. The son of a civil servant, he attended Latin School and then studied painting…

Sandro Botticelli was born in Florence in 1445. The most humanistic of the Renaissance painters, he was at first apprenticed to a goldsmith. He became, in 1465, a pupil of…

Paolo Uccello (born Paolo di Dono in 1397) was a Florentine painter who was notable for his pioneering work on visual perspective in art. His nickname Uccello came from his…

Jacopo (Robusti) Tintoretto, born in 1518, was one of the greatest painters of the Venetian school and probably the last great painter of the Italian Renaissance. In his youth he…

Gianbattista Tiepolo, as a youth, was apprenticed to Gregorio Lazzarini, a mediocre but fashionable painter known for his elaborately theatrical, rather grandiose compositions. Tiepolo soon evolved a more spirited style…

[caption id="attachment_1428" align="alignnone" width="640"] Rossetti reading proofs of Ballads and Sonnets at 16 Cheyne Walk, by Henry Treffry Dunn (1882)[/caption] All three of the Rossetti siblings would have important effects…

Raphael, the last of the three greatest painters of the Renaissance, was born Raffaello Sanzio in Urbino, in the province of Umbria in 1483. It is probable that he took…

Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone, known as Masaccio, was not only the greatest Florentine painter of the early fifteenth century, but remains one of the most important figures in the…

Marino Marini was born in Pistoia in 1901. He began his fine arts career in Florence, where he studied painting, graphic techniques and sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti.…

(1475 - 1532) Bernardino Luini was a North Italian painter from Leonardo's circle, a conservative painter who took "as much from Leonardo as his native roots enabled him to comprehend".…

Fra Filippo Lippi work was widely respected in his time, and he is known today as an innovative and accomplished painter of the Florentine Renaissance. Lippi was born in 1406…

Giotto di Bondone, the father of modern painting and one of the greatest figures in the history of Western art, was born in a small hamlet in the valley of…

Giorgio Giorgione was born Giorgio Barbarelli in Castelfranco in 1477. Very little is known about this master who died of the plague at the age of 34, but who changed…

(1901 - 1966) Alberto Giacometti, the Surrealist sculptor known for his nervous, elongated forms, was born in Stampa, Switzerland. Giacometti started drawing at the age of nine, painting at twelve…

Orazio Gentileschi and his daughter Artemisia were from the city of Pisa. Artemisia was a pioneer as a female painter of her time.

Giorgio de Chirico was born in Greece in 1888, to Italian parents. Although he was the son of a railroad worker, Chirico quickly developed an interest in art. He studied…

Leonardo da Vinci, the epitome of the Renaissance man, was born in 1452 in Vinci, a village near Florence and was brought up by his grandfather. In 1467 Leonardo entered…

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, revolutionary naturalist painter, was born in Caravaggio near Milan, the son of a mason in 1573. He showed his talent early and at the age of…

Giovanni Antonio Canale, known as Canaletto, was born in 1697 in Venice where his father was a painter of theatrical scenery. The young Canaletto studied first in his father's workshop…

Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano, called Il Bronzino, was born in 1503 in Monticello, outside Florence. He was first a student of, and then assistant to, Jacopo Pontormo, one of the…

Umberto Boccioni, Futurist theoretician, painter, and sculptor, was born in 1882 in Reggio Calabria and was a graduate of the Technical Institute of Catania when he began to study art…

Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar, was perhaps the most important painter of Renaissance Florence.

Movies with Ugo Tognazzi Because of his father's profession, inspector of an insurance company, Ugo Tognazzi spent his childhood in various cities to return later in 1936 in his native…

Alberto Sordi aka Albertone, was a beloved Italian actor and film director. He was also the voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel&Hardy

Marcello Mastroianni was an Italian actor made famous by the movies of Fellini such as La Dolce Vita and 8½. Mastroianni had a long acting career in Italy.

Anna Magnani was a beloved Academy Award-winning Italian actress, with stage experience. The Rose Tattoo with Burt Lancaster earned her an Oscar.

Sophia Loren is a motion picture and stage, Academy Award-winning actress, widely considered to be the most popular Italian performer.

A unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy, and desire, Fellini's films are deeply personal visions of society, often portraying people at their most bizarre. The term "felliniesque" is used to…

Vittorio De Sica was one of the world's most influential filmmakers, and as an actor he starred in 150 movies, built a career that spanned half a century.

Roberto Benigni is an Academy Award-winning Italian film and television actor, writer and director. He won an Oscar for Life is Beautiful (La Vita e' bella)