Giuseppe ERRANTE by Gioacchino Barbera - Biographical Dictionary of Italians - Volume 43 (1993))

Heas born in Trapani on March 19, 1760 by Maria Paola D'Alessandro and Giuseppe, a trader of skins (this explains the nickname of "guastacuoi" given to him by a child for his habit of engraving on the leather figures and caricatures), and still boy he was sent to drawing school at Domenico Nolfo, a modest sculptor from Trapani. Since 1773, thanks to the patronage of the baron of Milo and the knight A. Di Ferro, he studied in at first with the Capuchin painter Father Fedele da San Biagio and then with G. Martorana. Back in his native city for some years, around 1780 he painted the Virgin of Carmel that frees the souls of purgatory for a church inside the castle walls, now lost: it is preserved the sketch, of decidedly late- style, in the Pepoli Regional Museum of Trapani.

According to biographers, as early as 1784 he was in , where he attended the study of architect G. Barbieri, practicing in perspective. The altarpiece with SS Vincenzo and Anastasio dates back to these years of Roman residence, in the Trevi district in the eponymous church, seat of the Confraternita dei Confettieri, characterized by a clean and meditated pattern and smooth colors, and the fresco with the wedding of Love and Psyche in a hall of Palazzo Altieri. The frescoes with the souls of purgatory for the dome of the church of the Oration and Death of Civitavecchia (completed in 1788, as attested by the date and signature of the painter, found during the restoration of 1970) are documented in 1786, unanimously considered by critics his most demanding work, still linked to the decorative tradition of rocaille taste. In the same church they are also attributed, for narrow stylistic affinities (Aliberti Gaudioso, 1972), a canvas with the Madonna and Child ex. Joseph and a processional banner that depicts on one side the Madonna and Child with the souls in purgatory and on the other S. Michael the archangel who appears to the ss. Gregorio Magno and Rocco. Also in 1786, during a short stay in Trapani, Errante married Giuseppina Vultaggio.

In the years 1787-88 he was in , where he paid tribute to King Ferdinand IV of a painting, Leda with Jupiter turned into a swan, much admired also by P. Hackert, thus succeeding in obtaining a retired annual and housing in Rome, Farnesina, to continue painting studies; a few years later, in 1791, he obtained from the king the establishment of a school of fine arts in Trapani, independent of the academies of Naples and Palermo. Around 1794 he was entrusted with the task of frescoing a room in the royal of , but for political reasons - he was accused of plotting with his revolutionary compatriot - he was forced to flee under the false name of "Giuseppe Pellegrino, master of sword and amateur of pictorial antiquarian "(Cancellieri, 1824), to take refuge in Milan. On his way to Milan, during a stop in Ancona, he performed a 'Our Lady of Sorrows and Justice and Peace embracing, both dispersed, and the altarpiece with S. Giacomo, s. Andrea and the Redeemer for the church of S. Giacomo, commissioned by cardinal Vincenzo Ranuzzi, bishop of Ancona.

From 1795 to 1810, he resided in Milan and worked as a painter of fencing as a painter: he opened a school frequented by Napoleonic officers, first of all the general A. Massena, tying himself to the main military and worldly circles. In 1803 he died in Trapani his wife, who had not wanted to follow him on his travels; a few years later he married Matilde Gattarelli, from Rome. In this Milanese period his most important works are dated, among which we must remember the famous Death of Antigone, inspired by the Alfieri tragedy, and the Portrait of General Massena, now lost. Around 1804 Errante sent some canvases to Paris ( Artemisia crying, Endimione asleep, Psyche, works of which there is no more news) and in 1806, on the occasion of Napoleon's coming to Milan, he exhibited at Brera a series of twenty- two paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects ( among which the canvas depicting Jupiter divides Napoleon with the empire of the earth, of which the sketch is known in the Trapani private collection and an engraving in the Civic Collection Bertarelli of Milan), much appreciated by the Empress Giuseppina.

In September 1810 he left Milan, heading for Naples, to establish a fine arts academy commissioned by Gioacchino Murat. Because of the poor health, despite the insistent requests of the Neapolitan court to complete the trip, he stopped in Rome, where he earned a living with fencing lessons, always proposing to return to Milan to complete the death of Antigone, left unfinished.

He died in Rome on February 16th. 1821e was buried in the church of S. Salvatore in Onda.

From the first and fundamental biography of Cancellieri (1824), rich in news but with almost hagiographic tones, up to the most recent critical contributions, studies on the painter have grown, although at the current state of research there are not enough elements to define the complete corpus of his works, largely still untraceable, and to fully outline his artistic personality. The surviving paintings are kept in the municipal palace of Trapani ( Orpheus and Eurydice, Il Tempo and the fine arts ), in the Pepoli Regional Museum of the same city (at least mention the Portrait of a blind Timoleonte, an ' Immaculate, the Blessed Giuseppe Labrè, a Head of a young greek and the famous Death of Antigone ), donated in 1836 by the second wife Matilde Gattarelli, in (a sketch depicting Bishop Leone with the wizard Eliodoro, in the cathedral, a Portrait of Caronda, the university student, and a Psyche in the Zappalà Gemelli collection, see Policastro, 1950) and partly in private collections ( Portrait of Mrs. Gherardi and her daughter, , coll. Rizzi, see Cera, 1987, Danae, Milan, Nicodemi, see Accademia, 1939).

From them emerges a figure of a complex artist and still little investigated, that starting from an eighteenth-century formation, in a second time, under the influence of AR Mengs and A. Appiani, ends up adapting his language to neoclassical ways, with results discontinuous but not entirely devoid of original accents and a strong innovative power. On the sidelines of the indefatigable work of a painter, Errante published in 1817 (Rome) a Essay on the colors and a few years later, according to the biographers, a Wise on the means of resurrecting the fine arts.

Sources and Bibl.: F. Cancellieri, Memories collected... around the life and works of the painter cav. G. E. of Trapani, Rome 1824; Guide for foreigners in Trapani, Trapani 1825, pp. 217-220; GM Di Ferro, Biography of the illustrious men from Trapani from the Norman era until the current century, II, Trapani 1830, pp. 70-95; F. Mondello, The Library and the Fardellian Pinacoteca in Trapani, in New Sicilian Ephemerides, 1881, pp. 260 s., 263; C. Calisse, History of Civitavecchia, 1898, p. 545; Exhibition of the Italian portrait from the end of the century XVI to the year 1861, Florence 1911, p. 115; Inventory of Italian art objects, VIII, Provinces of Ancona and Ascoli Piceno, edited by L. Serra-B. Molajoli-P. Rotondi, Rome 1936, p. 35; M. Accascina, 19th century Sicilian. Painting, Rome 1939, pp. 23 s., 123 ss.; GB Comandè, An unknown painting by G. E. performed on commission of Napoleon, Palermo 1948; G. Policastro, Catania in the eighteenth century, Catania 1950, p. 313; Painters from the 19th century (catalan), edited by V. Scuderi, Trapani 1954, pp. 16-19, 30-34 (with previous bibl.); A. Schiavo, Palazzo Altieri, Rome 1964, pp. 131, 133; V. Scuderi, The Pepoli National Museum in Trapani, Rome 1965, pp. 26, 33; A. Ottino Della Chiesa, Neoclassicism in Italian painting, Milan 1967, pp. 22, 94; FM Aliberti Gaudioso, cards in Superintendency of Galleries and works of art for Lazio, Restoration 1970 - 1971, Rome 1972, pp. 64 ss.; F. Grasso, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century in Sicily, in History of Sicily, X, Palermo 1981, pp. 174 s.; The eighteenth-century painting in Rome, edited by S. Rudolph, Milan 1983, p. 764, fig. 249; The neoclassical painting ital., Edited by A. Cera, Milan 1987, p. 670, figs. 363-365; G. Barbera, in ancient Syracuse in Sicilian painting. of the nineteenth century (catal.), Syracuse 1988, pp. 42 s.; Id., In Painting in . The nineteenth century, II, Milan 1991, pp. 812 s.; Dictionary of illustrious Sicilians, Palermo 1939, pp. 206 s.; U. Thieme-F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon, XI, pp. 10 s.; Diz. enc. Bolaffi of the painters and engravers Ital., IV, Torino 1973, pp. 238-240.

Translated from: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giuseppe-errante_(Dizionario-Biografico)