Born in Ancona on 21 March 1800, the young Francesco lost his mother at the age of only twelve. His father sent him to study military architecture at the school of Pavia, where he was to remain until 1814. The following year, however, he lost his father, too, and thus also the means to pursue his studies.

Thanks to the intervention of the Marchese Carlo Bourbon del Monte, he was given an annual grant by the Ancona city authorities in 1816, and this allowed him to move to Rome to study painting under Vincenzo Camuccini and Gaspare Landi at the Accademia di San Luca. While in Rome, he supplemented his lessons at the Accademia by also frequenting the workshop of Antonio Canova, who soon began to feel a paternal affection for the young artist.

In October 1824 Podesti made a gift to his native city of a painting of Eteocles and Polynices, a way of demonstrating the results that the grant was allowing him to achieve. The painting led to his receiving commissions for two large altarpieces in the city: an Annunciation for the church of the Annunziata and the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, on which he worked from 1825 to 1827, for the cathedral.

In 1826 he began to travel extensively to perfect his artistic education, visiting Florence, Pisa, Bologna, Parma, Venice and Milan. It was in the latter city that he met the Marchesi Busca, for whom he painted a picture considered to be one of his masterpieces, the dual Portrait of Carlo Ignazio and Antonio Busca, in 1825.

A second trip was to take him to Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Returning to Rome in the 1830s, he was commissioned by Prince Alessandro Torlonia to paint a cycle of frescoes both for the Villa Torlonia outside the Porta Nomentana city gate and for the now demolished Palazzo Torlonia in Piazza Venezia.

The decorative cycles in the Torlonia residences were the most important and demanding artistic enterprise in 19th century Rome, and certainly in Podesti's career.

Among the many artists involved in the scheme, Podesti played a role of the greatest importance.

Elected an Academic of San Luca in 1835, he was commissioned by the House of Savoy to paint a Judgment of Solomon for the Royal Palace in Turin. Carlo Alberto even offered Podesti the post of director of the Accademia di Belle Arti in the city, but the painter turned the offer down, fearing that the job would somehow infringe upon his freedom as an artist.

In 1855, the year in which Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Podesti was commissioned to fresco the large Room of the Immaculate Conception in the Vatican with historical and allegorical episodes relating to the event.

Francesco Podesti died in Rome in 1896.

Francesco Podesti

Ancona, 1800 – Rome, 1895

The last exponent of historical painting, midway between Academicism and Romanticism, Francesco Podesti built up an excellent reputation in Europe, showing his work in London and Paris and achieving fame and glory at the very moment the new avant-garde artistic trends were coming to the fore.

Born in Ancona on 21 March 1800, the young Francesco lost his mother at the age of only twelve. His father sent him to study military architecture at the school of Pavia, where he was to remain until 1814. The following year, however, he lost his father, too, and thus also the means to pursue his studies. Thanks to the intervention of the Marchese Carlo Bourbon del Monte, he was given an annual grant by the Ancona city authorities in 1816, and this allowed him to move to Rome to study painting under Vincenzo Camuccini and Gaspare Landi at the Accademia di San Luca. While in Rome, he supplemented his lessons at the Accademia by also frequenting the workshop of Antonio Canova, who soon began to feel a paternal affection for the young artist.

In October 1824 Podesti made a gift to his native city of a painting of Eteocles and Polynices, a way of demonstrating the results that the grant was allowing him to achieve. The painting led to his receiving commissions for two large altarpieces in the city: an Annunciation for the church of the Annunziata and the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, on which he worked from 1825 to 1827, for the cathedral.

In 1826 he began to travel extensively to perfect his artistic education, visiting Florence, Pisa, Bologna, Parma, Venice and Milan. It was in the latter city that he met the Marchesi Busca, for whom he painted a picture considered to be one of his masterpieces, the dual Portrait of Carlo Ignazio and Antonio Busca, in 1825.

A second trip was to take him to Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum. Returning to Rome in the 1830s, he was commissioned by Prince Alessandro Torlonia to paint a cycle of frescoes both for the Villa Torlonia outside the Porta Nomentana city gate and for the now demolished Palazzo Torlonia in Piazza Venezia.

The decorative cycles in the Torlonia residences were the most important and demanding artistic enterprise in 19th century Rome, and certainly in Podesti's career. Among the many artists involved in the scheme, Podesti played a role of the greatest importance. Elected an Academic of San Luca in 1835, he was commissioned by the House of Savoy to paint a Judgment of Solomon for the Royal Palace in Turin. Carlo Alberto even offered Podesti the post of director of the Accademia di Belle Arti in the city, but the painter turned the offer down, fearing that the job would somehow infringe upon his freedom as an artist. It was while painting the Judgment of Solomon that Podesti met and married Clotilde Cagiati. The couple had six children, three of whom died young.

In 1855, the year in which Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Podesti was commissioned to fresco the large Room of the Immaculate Conception in the Vatican with historical and allegorical episodes relating to the event.

In the eleven years that it took him to fresco the hall, he clashed on several occasions with the papal curia on account of its determination to influence his choice of the prelates to portray, avoiding the depiction of a priest who had fallen into disgrace.

Podesti, however, was adamant, stressing his obligation to be true to historical reality. He enjoyed a serene old age, surrounded by his family and his friends, yet never ceasing to work. He was over eighty when he clambered up the scaffolding to fresco the Evangelists in the dome of the church of the Santissimo Sacramento in Ancona, and he showed two paintings at the International Exhibition in Rome in 1883. Francesco Podesti died in Rome in 1896.