Lazzaro Pisani as an ecclesiastical artist

Abstract

Lazzaro Pisani (1854-1932) alongside Giuseppe Cali (1846- 1930) was the major Maltese artistic personality of the turn of the nineteenth century. Trained at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome he worked in a mitigated academic idiom which was to differentiate his style from the unabashed romanticism of Cali. Pisani' s works, though adorning many churches in Mai ta and Gozo, were never the subject of a proper scientific study. As a result, the chief aim of the dissertation was to research, discuss, and understand Pisani both as a man and as an artist, and to provide a thorough list of his numerous works in churches and private collections together with a critical analysis of his most important ecclesiastical works. This also included the daunting task of taking a large number of photographs which now constitute a unique visual record of Pisani's work.