Arnaldo Ferraguti
Born in Ferrara in 1862, Arnaldo Ferraguti trained at the Naples Academy of Fine Arts; he was later to spend time in Francavilla al Mare with the verista painter Francesco Paolo Michetti, who remained a constant source of inspiration with his repertoire of themes focusing on the countryside and its humble inhabitants.
In 1891 he achieved international fame with his huge painting Alla vanga (“Digging”). In the same year he married Olga Treves, the niece of the well-known publishing brothers Emilio and Giuseppe Treves. He was thus able to combine his painting activity (sustained by a demanding series of exhibitions) with a career as a book and magazine illustrator (Cuore by Edmondo De Amicis, Vita dei campi by Giovanni Verga, hundreds of plates for “L’Illustrazione Italiana”, etc).
His social status rose after he built his villa in Pallanza, where he taught painting to Sophie Della Valle di Casanova Browne and where he frequented the cultural salon of Villa Cordelia, in which Giuseppe Treves received guests of the calibre of Gabriele D’Annunzio and Giovanni Verga.
Ferraguti also experimented with chemical processes, and after the turn of the century invented a kind of artificial parchment and an artificial leather, which he manufactured on an industrial scale.
He died in Forlì in 1925.
