Literature
FERRONI , Egisto . - He was born in Lastra a Signa (Florence) on December 14th. 1835 by Egiziano and Teresa Soldaini. The eldest of eight children, he was initiated into the art of his father, master stonemason, who wanted him to be an ornatist and who sent him first to Empoli and then to Florence to learn the trade from local artisans. In 1851 F. entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence where he studied, until 1857, drawing, figure and perspective, reporting "prizes in the ornate drawing, in the drawing by the chalk and in the academy designed" (Somarè, 1939. p 25). After leaving the Academy, he spent a few more years in Florence attending E. Pollastrini and S. Ussi, who started him to study the historical-anecdotal composition; some of his drawings and portraits ( The Girlfriend of the Painter , 1858 and The Grandfather Bista , sketch, 1860: Florence, private collection) document this early youthful period revealing, next to the neoclassical inspiration and some ideas derived from A. Ciseri, a decisive orientation towards observation and realistic rendering. In 1862, established in Lastra a Signa, where in the meantime he had taken a wife (1860), F. painted his first historical picture, The meeting of Charles VIII with the Florentine ambassadors in Ponte a Signa(preserved in the municipal building). The painting is still linked to the academic canons, as are the numerous gender squares, with figures in eighteenth-century costume, which were commissioned in those same years by the Pisani gallery in Florence (Boito, 1873). Although he was sensitive to the requests expressed in Florence by the Macchiaioli movement, the F. did not join the group, of which he did not share the technical novelties, but, abandoned the academic painting of historical subject, dedicated himself to the rural theme portraying characters and episodes of the Tuscan countryside by an incisive design with a strong plastic prominence. In 1863 he exhibited at the Promoter of Florence the Return from the fair (1862: Florence, private collection) that, together with other works of those years ( The visit, 1863: Florence, Modern Art Gallery of Palazzo Pitti), documents how his painting was definitively oriented towards the expression of truth. At the Promoter of 1868 he presented Le trecciaiole (1867: London, National Gallery), inaugurating a series of larger and more complex compositions. In contact with some members of the Macchiaioli movement, among which G. Fattori, O. Borrani, N. Cannicci, L. Gioli and, above all, T. Signorini, the F., reserved and meticulous, rarely moved from Tuscany; in 1878 he was in Paris on the occasion of the Universal Exposition where he exhibited his paintings La boscaiola e Gita by boat(unknown location). In Paris he got to know the different orientations of French naturalism, and in particular he was attracted to the painting by J. Bastien-Lepage. In 1878 the most fruitful decade of the painter's life opens. Most of the paintings commissioned by the Count of Frassineto ( L'infioccatura , 1877, Towards the sheepfold , La barca , La caccia , Il ballo , from 1879, Il carro , 1881: Frassineto, coll conte Frassineto) ; a series of idyllic pictures, often of small size, such as inserting, at times, purely pictorial motifs in delicate shades of gray ( the camps , 1881. The woodsman , 1883: Florence, Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Palazzo Pitti, The street merchant, 1882: Palermo, Gallery of modern art; Father returns , 1883: Rome, National Gallery of Modern Art); some portraits ( La madre , 1873: Milan, private collection) and numerous studies and sketches. At the National Exposition of Turin in 1879, F. presented At the source (Florence, Art Gallery of Pitti Palme), which also exhibited the following year to the Florentine Promoter, receiving the consensus of D. Martelli, F. Martini and A. Cecioni. In those same years, with A. Tommasi, he rented a studio in Florence in via Milton, where for a few years he privately taught painting. Member of the Society of Fine Arts and Honorary Academic of the Florentine Academy of Design since 1882, in 1889 F. took part in theThe mother and the lumberjack . From 1891 a depressive crisis, due to the death of his son Raffaele, slowed down the work of F. which also reduced participation in the exhibitions. Present in 1897 at the Venice Biennale with Amori santi , in 1906 in Rome he exhibited Back to the source at the Second exhibition of the Association of Italian Artists. He was the author of some sketches and drawings for the Bellariva ceramics factory, directed by his son Giuseppe, and he also modeled the reliefs depicting the Harvest and Harvest for the "Vittorio Emanuele" steamer saloon. In 1908 he settled in Florence, at the home of his son Arrigo, where he died on May 25, 1912. Sources and Bibl . N. Tarchiani Marginalia : E . F. , In Marzocco , 2 June 1912, and in L'Illustration Italian , 2 June 1912, p. 543; C. Boito, The new painting in Florence , in New Anthology , March-April 1873, p. 488; A. Cecioni, On the E framework . F. , In Giornale artistico , 12 June 1874, n. 6; L. Bellinzoni, The Paris Exposition : F . and Moradei , in Il Popolo romano , May 15, 1878; T. Signorini, the art that Florence sent to Paris , inLetters and Arts , XV (1889), pp. 6-8; P. Nomellini, in Commemorative exhibition of E . F . (catal.), Florence 1936; E. Somare, the work of It . F. , Milan 1939 (with previous bibl.); J. Pelegatti - R. Tassi, I postmacchiaioli , Florence 1962, pp. 5-12; S. Furlotti Reberschak, Bolaffi Catalog of Italian painting . 800 , Turin 1980, p. 81 (for collective exhibitions, the most recent auctions and private collections); A. Del Guercio, 19th century painting , Turin 1982, pp. 88, 90; E. Spalletti, in Painting in Italy . The nineteenth century , Milan 1991, ad Indicem; S.Bietoletti, ibid ., P. 824; Italian art of the twentieth century , M. Pratesi - G. Uzzani, La Toscana , Venezia 1991, ad Indicem ; Encicl . Ital ., XV, p. 123; U. Thieme - F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon , XI, pp. 488; Diz . encicl . of the painters ... ital . Bolaffi , IV, pp. 419 s.
