Marco Benefial

In 1720, he protested the Accademia di San Luca's decree that only members or those meeting the approval of the painter's guild could teach drawing.

[1][2] After Benefial was finally elected into the Accademia di San Luca at the age of 57, he soon denounced its members' mediocrity and ignorance; and was expelled years later in 1755.

In 1721, he completed a Pieta with angels & symbols of the passion for the church in the monastery of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori.

His initial training in Rome was under Bonaventura Lambert, a pupil of Carlo Cignani, and he helped in the painting of the Chapel of the Sacrament in Saint Peter's Basilica and in the Carmelite Convent of San Alberto.

Among his pupils were Anton Raphael Mengs, Antonio Liozzi, Giovanni Battista Ponfredi,[3] Gioacchino Martorana, Mariano Rossi, and the English portrait painter, John Parker.