Leopoldo Cicognara

Count Leopoldo Cicognara (17 November 1767, in Ferrara – 5 March 1834, in Venice) was an Italian artist, art collector, art historian and bibliophile.

Cicognara attended the Collegio dei Nobili in Modena from 1776 to 1785.[1] From 1788-1790,[2] he attended the Societá dell’Arcadia in Rome where he studied painting under Jacob Philipp Hackert and Domenico Corvi. There he also became interested in art criticism and archeology.[3] He later he visited Naples and Sicily, and published one of his first works of poetry in Palermo. Cicognara studied archeology during travels to Florence, Milan, Bologna and Venice.[4]

In 1795, he moved to Modena and began a brief political career, becoming a member of the legislative body, serving as a councilor of state, and minister plenipotentiary of the Cisalpine Republic at Turin. Napoleon decorated him with the Iron Crown.[5]

Cicognara left politics in 1805 to devote himself to art history. He settled in Venice and in 1808 was made president of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, a post in which he worked until 1826. He was influential in opening the Galleria dell’Accademia to the public in 1817,[6] increasing the number of the professors at the academy, improving the curriculum, and establishing prizes.

In 1808, his treatise Del bello regionamenti was published, which he dedicated to Napoleon. Wilhelm Schlegel advised Cicognara on his magnum opus, the Storia della scultura dal suo risorgimento in Italia al secolo di Napoleone, The book was designed to complete the works of Winckelmann and D’Agincourt and is illustrated with 180 plates.

In 1814, after the fall of Napoleon, Cicognara was patronized by Francis I of Austria, and between 1815 and 1820 published, under the auspices of that sovereign, his Fabbriche più cospicue di Venezia, two folios, containing some 150 plates. Charged by the Venetians with the presentation of their gifts to the Princess Caroline Augusta of Bavaria at Vienna, Cicognara added to the offering an illustrated catalogue of the objects it comprised; this book, Omaggio delle Provincie Venete alla maestri Carolina Augusta, has since become of great value to bibliophiles.

The other works by Cicognara are the Memorie storiche de litterati ed artisti Ferraresi (1811); the Vite de’ più insigni pittori e scultori Ferraresi, MS.; the Memorie spettanti alla storia della calcografia (1831); and a large number of dissertations on painting, sculpture, engraving and other kindred subjects.

In 1833, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Academician.