Napoleone Vincenzo Biography
Vincenzo Napoleone, one of the most important figurative painters of the twentieth century in Abruzzo, was born in Torre dei Passeri (PE) on 5 April 1910 to Giuseppe and Rosina Perazza. At the age of 12, he was introduced to art by the fresco painter Angelo De Cesaris, author of the frescoes in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Torre dei Passeri, who was the first to notice his strong predisposition for drawing; later maestro De Cesaris became his brother-in-law, marrying his sister Maria in 1925. The war events and the resulting serious economic crisis that hit Italy and Abruzzo forced Napoleon to abandon his studies and face life early. In 1928, on the occasion of a brief visit by Gabriele D'Annunzio to Pescara, recently elevated to the status of province, Vincenzo Napoleone, eighteen years old, made some pencil sketches of the poet, much appreciated by the poet, and in 1936 again for D'Annunzio he created an oil portrait then replicated in 1947 because the original was destroyed during the war. In 1954, attracted by better earning prospects, Napoleone left Italy and moved to Venezuela with his friend Manfredo Michetti, also a painter, where he remained for four years. They were formative and satisfying years where he worked as a portraitist of the Venezuelan President Marcos Perez Jimenez and from him he received the task of restoring the art gallery of Palazzo Miraflores.
