Francesco Ferrario Biography
Francesco Ferrario (Caravaggio, 16 April 1875 – Milan, 7 April 1946) was an Italian cabinetmaker of neoclassical and Liberty style. Francesco Ferrario was born in Caravaggio in 1875 to a family of modest economic conditions. Just fourteen years old, he works as an apprentice in a blacksmith's shop, his father's profession and before that his grandfather's. Having moved to Milan, he entered the workshop of the Scotti brothers, cabinetmakers, carvers and wood sculptors and attended the Higher School of Applied Art in Industry at the Sforzesco Castle. Thanks to a subsidy from the Congregazione della Carità of Caravaggio, in 1895 he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, obtaining a diploma as a drawing professor; pupil of Giuseppe Mentessi and the architect Gaetano Moretti, he formed a friendship with the master Ludovico Pogliaghi and other artists including Carlo Rizzarda Feltre. In 1901 he opened his own laboratory in via Carlo Tenca in Milan. In 1906 he received the prize for the bedroom for a young lady presented at the International Exhibition of Milan[1]; in 1911 he reconstructed the Camerini of Isabella d'Este on the occasion of the Rome Exhibition[2][3][4][5]; in 1913 he designed and created the Regency Hall for the new headquarters of the Bank of Italy in Piazza Cordusio in Milan[6][7]; in 1914 he was commissioned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage to restore the wooden choir of the church of Santa Maria in Organo in Verona[8][9]. He will be named honorary member of the Brera Academy and awarded the order of Cavaliere del Lavoro. His workshop, in Corso Sempione since 1927, has around thirty workers, even his children collaborate in the activity: in fact his son Pietro and to a lesser extent his son Adriano will continue their father's work. In 1938 Ferrario played a primary role in the creation of the commemorative exhibition of Giuseppe Maggiolini[10]. In 1943 the laboratory and the shop were destroyed by the bombings of the Second World War and the company moved to via Vittoria Colonna. Francesco Ferrario died in 1946. In 1957 the Municipality of Caravaggio dedicated a street to him.
