Achille Vertunni

He enrolled to study landscape painting under Salvatore Fergola, and after just eight months went on to serve his first apprenticeship under the historical painter Giuseppe Bonolis, and eventually with Francesco De Sanctis.

In 1851 Vertunni entered the yearly competition held by the Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli (Naples Academy of Fine Arts), but the judges failed to agree on a single winner for the first prize, opting instead for awarding a silver medal each, ex equo, to Vertunni and Filippo Palizzi, a fellow pupil of Bonolis', rumoured to have been the judges' favourite, owing to his links with the academy.

As part of their prize, the two artists received a stipend to study in Rome and in 1853 Vertunni moved there, painting the Santa Margherita da Cortona for the Esposizione di Firenze of 1861.

Gradually the profile of the domestic visitors to the Atelier morphed, and over the years between 1868 and 1870, Garibaldini and other supporters of Italian Unification began to frequent the regular banquets and soireés where the Baron entertained the crowned heads of Europe, renowned musicians as well as political figures such as General La Marmora.

Tragically, the constant use of lead-based pigments, which, like many painters he mixed by hand, gradually poisoned the artist, who suffered progressive paralysis over the final 20 years of his life.