Luigi Fontana

Luigi Fontana (Monte San Pietrangeli, 1827 – 1908) was an Italian artist trained in the Marche and in Rome. Although he is also remembered as a sculptor and architect, his work as a painter of religious subjects and of commissions for churches and palaces holds an important place in the art of his region and of the capital.

His training began between 1838 and 1841 in Macerata under Gaetano Ferri, and continued in Fermo with Gaetano Palmaroli. He later moved to Rome, where he joined the studio of Tommaso Minardi and attended classes at the Accademia di San Luca. He painted religious subjects for the seminary in Fermo and for the church in Grottazzolina, and in 1850 he returned to Rome to paint a canvas showing Orazio Brancadoro. Among his other works are a Vision of Ezekiel for San Nicola da Tolentino and a copy of Lorenzo Lotto's Crucifixion in Telusiano.

In Rome he left frescoes in the apse of the Santi Apostoli, executed between 1871 and 1875, along with works in other basilicas and palaces. From 1879 to 1903 he worked with the ornamental painter Nicola Achilli on faux marble and stucco decoration in cathedrals and churches across the Marche. He is also credited with a life-size silver statue of Saint Philip of Agira, about two metres high, held in Zebbug, Malta, and completed in 1863.