1854–1932
Lazzaro Pisani
Lazzaro Pisani (1854–1932) studied in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca but returned to Malta in 1874. In 1885 his painting “Death of Abel” won him a silver medal at the Colonial Exhibition in London. He decorated Maltese churches: the ceiling of the basilica in Nadur is made up of more than 150 canvases. His last frescoes, in Siġġiewi and Mġarr, were left unfinished.
Biography
Among Lazzaro Pisani’s works is the ceiling of the Basilica of St Peter and St Paul in Nadur, on Gozo. It is made up of more than 150 canvases attached to the vaulted ceiling.
Pisani was born on 15 December 1854 in Żebbuġ, Malta. He went to Rome to study at the Accademia di San Luca. In 1874 he returned to Malta: he had contracted malaria in Rome. At home he received a financial award from the Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. His first notable honour was a silver medal at the Colonial Exhibition in London in 1885. It was awarded for “Death of Abel”, an oil on canvas of the same year, which is now in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Malta. He won a second silver medal at the Colonial Exhibition of 1924, when he was almost seventy. Most of his known works are church paintings. The dome of the parish church in Siġġiewi is decorated with “The Beatitudes”: eight canvases fixed to the dome by marouflage, in which canvas is glued to the surface. One of them came away from the dome in 2013, and conservation work began on 1 May 2014. For the Corpus Christi Church in Għasri, on Gozo, he painted “The Last Supper”; it was restored in 2007 with sponsorship from the Bank of Valletta. “The Madonna of the Rosary” is in the Church of Jesus of Nazareth in Sliema. His church works also include “Our Lady of Sorrows” (1924), and “St. Dismas” is counted among them.
He painted portraits as well. A self-portrait and a portrait of Concetta Pisani (both 1916) survive, along with a portrait of Mrs. Gauci (1907) and portraits of Lady Edeline Strickland, Judge Sir Salvatore Naudi and Pietro Paolo Mompalao. There is also a picture called “The Letter”. Who Concetta, Mary and Roby Pisani were, I have not been able to establish from the materials available to me.
Pisani died on 31 August 1932 at St. Paul’s Bay. At the time he was working on frescoes in the churches of Siġġiewi and Mġarr; he did not live to finish them.
In 2008 his daughter bequeathed to Heritage Malta a collection of eleven of her father’s paintings. From 15 January to 25 March of that year they were shown in an exhibition, for which the art historian Lino Borg wrote the catalogue.
Profile notes