Luigi Ademollo, born in Milan in 1764, was one of the major exponents of Italian Neoclassicism. He began his artistic studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, working as the apprentice of Giuliano Traballesi, Giuseppe Piermarini, Giocondo Albertolli and Domenico Aspari, who were all great exponents of the Milan artistic culture .
He soon abandoned his academic studies and visited many Italian cities to paint theatrical set design. In 1785 he reached Rome, which at the time was the undisputable European capital of arts and temple of the “Vero Gusto”.
He stayed in Rome until 1788 where he was in contact with the more eccentric circles of the artistic Roman culture, such as the “Accademia de’ Pensieri”, under Felice Giani’s direction from 1787 to 1793, where artists such as Luigi Sabatelli, Pietro Benvenuti and Giuseppe Bossi received their education.
Such academy was famous for the experimentation of the figurative language linked to the sublime inspiration, and to the literary connotation of neoclassicism as well as to primordial instances, which were already being diffused by Nordic artists.
In Rome the genius and productive talent of Ademollo assumed that particular and distinctive touch linked to a literary-philosophic vision of neoclassicism.
In 1788 he finally moved to Tuscany, as he had won the contest for the decoration of the Florentine theater of the Pergola, which was completed by 1789. During the same year he was nominated ‘consociate’ of the prestigious Academy of the Fine Arts of Florence. Since then, other than short stays in Rome, he lived permanently in Tuscany.
Ademollo was a very productive painter inspired by a visionary vein fostered by a great literary culture founded on the classics (the Holy Scripture, Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch): he gained immense fame for having strikingly decorated numerous public buildings and private Tuscan residences. To date, there is still not a complete and exhaustive list of which works of Ademollo still exist and are being conserved.
His artistic production includes mural paintings (frescoes, temperas, encaustic paintings), oils on canvas, temperas and watercolors on paper, sketches and inscriptions.
Francesco Leone