Anatolio SCIFONI (1841-1884) ✿

Anatolio Scifoni (Florence,1841 - Rome, 1884) was an Italian painter of Neo-Pompeian themes from ancient Greece and Rome.

He was the son of the painter I. Botti and of the poet Luigi Scifoni. He studied painting first in the Albertina Academy in Turin, then in Paris, and then moved to Rome, where he became a friend and follower of Lorenzo Delleani. In 1860 at Turin he exhibits his first painting.

He called his works archeologic painting. He painted baths, gardens, triclinia (Antique Roman dining room), and ginecei (women's quarters in Ancient Greece. He spent months among the silent ruins of Pompei, where he imagined girls in fanciful pursuits, in gardens or orchards, or strolling under elaborate arches, or on cushions in aristocratic and mysterious cubiculi.

His paintings won first class medals at Vienna and Philadelphia. Scifoni's work found patrons among the royal family. He was knighted into the Order of the Crown of Italy. His large canvas of Vittorio Emanuele II in Campidoglio was commissioned by the artist of the prefect of the Royal House, Prince Doria Pamphili, to commemorate the enthronement of the King in Campidoglio, in January 1870.