Calcedonio Reina (4 February 1843, in

Catania Catania (, , , Sicilian and ) is the second-largest municipality on Sicily, after Palermo, both by area and by population. Despite being the second city of the island, Catania is the center of the most densely populated Sicilian conurbation, wh ...

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

– 9 November 1911, in Catania) was an Italian painter and poet. He is described as having a melancholic and neurasthenic temperament in life and art.

Biography

His father was a prominent surgeon in Sicily who wanted his son to follow him into a medical career. However, Calcedonio moved to

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

in 1864 and soon found himself making copies of the classic sculptures in the

Capodimonte Museum Museo di Capodimonte is an art museum located in the Palace of Capodimonte, a grand Bourbon palazzo in Naples, Italy designed by Giovanni Antonio Medrano. The museum is the prime repository of Neapolitan painting and decorative art, with se ...

. He was accepted as a pupil by the Institute of Fine Arts under

Domenico Morelli Domenico Morelli (4 August 182313 August 1901) was an Italians, Italian painter, who mainly produced historical and religious works. Morelli was immensely influential in the arts of the second half of the 19th century, both as director of the Ac ...

. Soon afterwards he travelled to Florence and Rome, prolifically painting interiors and

vedute A ''veduta'' (; : ''vedute'') is a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, more often, print of a cityscape or some other vista. The painters of ''vedute'' are referred to as ''vedutisti''. Origins This genre of landscape originated ...

of ruins and making drawings of statues and busts. His paintings include ''Il Cieco pompeiano'' (''The Blind Man in Pompeii''); ''Suor Clara sedotta dal demonio'' (''Sister Clara Seduced by a Demon''); and ''Una scena dell'89'' (''A Scene from 1889''). At the 1877 National Fine Arts Exhibition in Naples, he exhibited ''Accaduto nel coretto'' ('' The Correct Man's Accident''); ''Miserere''; ''Exagitatio'' (''Agitation''); and ''Ada''. In 1881 at Turin, and the next year at Milan, he exhibited ''Amore e morte'' (''Love and Death'') - showing a couple having a loving kiss in front of the rows of mummified corpses in Palermo's Catacombs of Cappuccini, it is a morbid, almost ghoulish, variation on Hayez's '' The Kiss''. In 1883 at Rome, he exhibited ''Per Montecarlo'' (''For

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo ( ; ; or colloquially ; , ; ) is an official administrative area of Monaco, specifically the Ward (country subdivision), ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is located. Informally, the name also refers to ...

'', now lost); and ''È lui..'' (''And he..'', also known as ''Accaduto nel Coretto''). In Berlin in 1883 and London in 1888, he exhibited paintings titled ''Temptation''. At Palermo in 1891-1892 he exhibited ''Campagne d'una volta'' (''Past Campaigns'') and ''Expiation''. He entered a painting entitled ''Vendetta'' (''Revenge'') for the 1897 Brera Triennale in Milan. In 1898 he sent ''Nyosoumba'' to be exhibited in Turin and ''Ti aspetto'' (''I Am Waiting For You'') to St Petersburg in Russia. His book of poetry ''Canti della Patria'' (''Songs of the Fatherland'') was warmly received by contemporaries such as

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

, Guerrazzi, and Tommasèo. Calcedonio was a friend of the famed Sicilian poet Mario Rapisardi. ''Dizionario degli Artisti Italiani Viventi: pittori, scultori, e Architetti.''
by Angelo de Gubernatis. Tipe dei Successori Le Monnier, 1889, page 410. The house where he lived and died in Catania has a plaque on its exterior calling him ''a poet in painting, and a painter in poetry'' - in full it reads:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reina, Calcedonio 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian painters 1842 births 1911 deaths Painters from Naples Artists from Catania Italian poets Italian male poets Poets from Sicily 19th-century Italian male artists 20th-century Italian male artists