Giovanni Costa

Giovanni Costa (15 October 1826 – 31 January 1903), often known as Nino Costa, was an Italian landscape painter and patriotic revolutionary.

Biography

Giovanni Costa was born in Rome on 15 October 1826, the fourteenth of the sixteen children of Gioacchino Costa (died 1842) and Maria Chiappi (died 1857). His father was from Santa Margherita Ligure and as a young man had moved to Rome, where he opened a wool-spinning factory and achieved wealth and position. The family lived in a large house in Piazza San Francesco a Ripa, in Trastevere, close to the factory.

When he was 12 Giovanni was introduced to the neo-classical painter Baron Vincenzo Camuccini, who encouraged him to work from nature and from what he saw around him. Soon after was sent to the Jesuit college at Montefiascone, where remained for five years.

Costa returned to Rome in 1843, the year after the death of this father, and for two years attended the Collegio Bandinelli in the via Giulia, founded by Bartolommeo Bandinelli in 1678, where he was taught drawing by Luigi Durantini. He then worked for short time in the studio of Vincenzo Camuccini before entering the schools of the Accademia di San Luca, where he studied under Francesco Coghetti, Francesco Podesti and Filippo Agricola.