Born in Naples on July 10, 1806, died there on November 29, 1876. The most representative of the painters of the "School of Posillipo", the true leader of that renewal movement which, breaking down the academic conventions of that time, banned the truth of an "open-air" painting. His father, Gaetano, a mediocre painter, initiated him into art like his other children, Ercole, Achille and Emilia. Protected by Vianelli, he was introduced to Huber, in whose studio he learned to paint in oil and watercolour. Then he went to Dutch Pitloo's school, and ended up passing him. He made his first earnings by carrying out watercolor landscapes on behalf of a Swiss, Wolfensberger. Grown in fame, in 1846 he accompanied the Emperor and Empress of Russia to Sicily, where he composed for them an album of views of the island. He was later appointed drawing master of the sons of Ferdinand II of Bourbon, then raised to the position of court painter by Francesco II. Jealous of his art, almost of the landscape he portrayed, he was an admirable executor, a warm and airy colourist, a student of the effects of light. He dealt with oil, half tempera - a system he devised -, watercolor, etching, lithography, revealing himself, with his free and lively technique, a precursor of impressionism. Some of his works: La marina di Sorrento, owned by the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Rome; The Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro animated by the people, watercolor, commissioned by Vittorio Emanuele II and currently located in the Pinacoteca di Capodimonte; Ruins of a temple in Pompeii and San Francesco in Pozzuoli, in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan; Taormina, watercolor, in the collection of Count Giuseppe Matarazzo di Licosa; Villa Minutolo, property of the painter Giuseppe Casciaro; Landscape of Cava, watercolor, in the collection of Cav. Mangusi of Naples; Pozzuoli, owned by Eng. Ercole Norsi of Turin; Sorrento landscape and Portico di Convento, both in the collection of the comm. Carlo Clausetti of Milan; The cloister of San Lorenzo; At the source; The sacristy of Donna Regina; Amalfi, all owned by the Hon. Alberto Gualtieri of Naples. Many other paintings are in the Menotti Bianchi collection, and in those of Baron Chiarandà and Francesco Jerace.