Silvestro Lega

Silvestro Lega, well-known painter.

Silvestro Lega was born in 1826 in Modigliana and he died in 1895. He was a famous macchiaiolo painter. He spent most of his life in Tuscany. Together with Fattori and Signorini he founded the most popular XIX century pictorial school, the Macchiaioli (the name is inspired by the technique these artists used in their works). As it often happens among the artists he became famous and appreciated only after his death, while he had a hard life because of his poor health and economic troubles. He was a good friend of Don Giovanni Verità to whom he dedicated some paintings and a portray. Lega was also a convinced follower of Mazzini and he fought for the Unity of Italy with the Tuscanian volunteers in Curtatone and Montanara (1848). The lives of the two most famous citizens of Modigliana, Lega and Verità, crossed very often because of their sincere friendship and their political effort. The patriot-priest Don Giovanni Verità had a fundamental role during the Italian Risorgimento. They were members of the glorious Accademia degli Incamminati, a cultural institution of Modigliana that reborn in 1755 on the ashes of Accademia dei Pastori del Marzeno (1659). They both are buried in Modigliana cemetery and their works are collected in Museo Civico Don Giovanni Verità and an exhibition dedicated to Lega has been mounted at Biblioteca Comunale. Modigliana is proud to keep some of his paintings in Museo Comunale Don Giovanni Verità (via Garibaldi).

Further information

Many paintings by Lega are collected in Don Giovanni Verità Museum in Modigliana.