Fausto Vagnetti Biography
Fausto Vagnetti (Anghiari, 24 March 1876 – Rome, 18 September 1954) is an exponent of Italian painting who emigrated to the Roman artistic environment, bringing there a luministic and chromatic sensitivity typical of Tuscan painting of the second half of the 19th century. He was born in Anghiari, in the Alta Val Tiberina, and he will remain linked to Anghiari for his entire life. It comes to light in what is now the Mayor's Hall, inside the Palazzo Pretorio of Anghiari. His son Luigi was an architect and academic. At 17, in 1893, he moved to Rome where he was a pupil of Filippo Prosperi at the Institute of Fine Arts in via Ripetta. He takes up lodgings and then opens the studio in Piazzale Ponte Milvio, in an ancient building which was also a refreshment place and a place for changing horses. He came into contact with artists, including Duilio Cambellotti and Mario Sironi and the art critic Piero Scarpa. Since 1908 he has taught architectural drawing and ornamentation at the Faculty of Engineering in Rome. Since 1912 he has held the Chair of Figure Design at the Institute of Fine Arts in Rome; again in 1912 he was called to teach Perspective and Scenography at the Industrial Art Museum of Rome. In 1913 he married Rosalia Pittaluga. From the marriage Luigi (Gigi), Corinna and Maddalena (Nenella) were born. Of all the members of his family, Fausto Vagnetti painted the portrait. During the war he served as a technical designer at the Terni steelworks. Since 1920, the year of the foundation of this university faculty, he has held the chair of life drawing at the Faculty of Architecture in Rome, which he held for thirty-five years. His perspective drawing manuals show how much attention he applied to the study of space and perspective, with precise research on voids and light. He dies suddenly in Rome, in his study.
