Baldassare Calamai

Baldassare Calamai (Florence, November 13, 1797 – July 11, 1851) was an Italian painter, active in a neoclassical style, painting mainly historical subjects.

Biography

He was a pupil of Pietro Benvenuti in Florence. Saltini, who likely knew the artist, bemoans his failure to achieve greatness, stating:

Among his works were:

• Galileo visited by Milton
• Dante, Virgil, and Farinata degli Uberti (1825)
• Episode during Plague of 1348 in Florence (1828, second version 1836)
• Ruggiero opens the Tower of Hunger to discover corpses of Ugolino and his sons, (from Dante's Inferno, 1838).