Together with the engraver Francesco Di Bartolo and the painters Natale Attanasio, Calcedonio Reina and Giuseppe Sciuti, he would contribute to the development of art in Catania in the second half of 19th century.

[1] Another uncle, Francesco, had studied medicine in Florence and Paris and was a friend of the historian Carlo Giuseppe Guglielmo Botta and the dramatist Giovanni Battista Niccolini.

[2] Antonino spent his childhood among the olive trees and prickly pears of his father’s countryside and the paintbrushes of his uncle Giuseppe who influenced his artistic nature and who was his first teacher.

The picture was seen and appreciated by King Vittorio Emanuele II who, impressed with the talent of the young artist, wanted to pose for him, receiving a portrait painted extemporaneously in pen and ink.

The first painting after this period which has survived is Temptation (La tentazione), a large canvas depicting a poor woman who is forced to accept the money offered to her by a young man for nefarious purposes; below, on the right-hand side, her mother watches impassively, with resignation.

(Maria, together with her elder sister, Agata, came to live in his house at Rocca del Vento street 22 in Catania around 1874–75, originally to care for Gandolfo's little son and do the housework.

His friendship with Rapisardi was rich in meetings and conversations, that took place in the house of the latter, at Etnea street, where literature and artistic projects were discussed, as well as many other topics.

In March 1886 he gave his friend Rapisardi a canvas entitled The crying girl (La ragazza piangente), that the poet liked very much and thus thanked him: In 1888 his second son, also named Luigi, was born.

Among his subjects were the painter Filippo Liardo, to whom he would dedicate various portraits, Rapisardi, and professors such as Giuseppe Zurria and Salvatore Tomaselli, but also the poor, the peasants, and the natural beauties of the local villages.

[9] In those years the friendship between the painter and his literary friends intensified: often Antonino would get them together in his country house in Cannizzaro, where he possessed a large piece of land inherited from his father.

We know for certain that Nino Martoglio participated in those meetings and kept the company cheerful, to the point that the tenor Giulio Crimi laughed so hard he popped the buttons off his collar.

Regular visitors included Liardo, Rapisardi, Capuana, Verga and Federico De Roberto who, according to photographic evidence, continued to visit Gandolfo's son long after the death of the painter.