Alexander Molinari

Later, he would be the inspiration for the artist, "Berthold", in Hoffmann's story, The Jesuit Church in G (1817).

[1] The year 1806 found him in Saint Petersburg, where he was warmly welcomed by Salvatore Tonci, the unofficial leader of an Italian artists' colony in Moscow.

In 1810, with Tonci's assistance, he was able to find employment as a drawing teacher for the family of Count Dmitri Buturin [ru], a bibliophile and amateur poet: living on his estate north of Obninsk.

[2] He soon became a favorite artist of the Russian aristocracy; who admired his knowledge of foreign art, and corresponded with many, including Tsar Alexander I.

This was followed by periods in Berlin and Dresden, where he died suddenly, from a stroke, at the age of fifty-nine.