Pietro Novelli

Pietro Novelli (1603–1647) was born in Monreale and trained first with his father, the painter and mosaicist Pietro Antonio Novelli. In 1618 he moved to Palermo, where he apprenticed with Vito Carrera and studied perspective with the mathematician Carlo Maria Ventimiglia. Van Dyck's visit to Sicily in 1624, and his Madonna of the Rosary altarpiece in Palermo, shaped Novelli's style, and a stay in Rome and Naples in the early 1630s brought him into contact with the work of Ribera and the Neapolitan naturalists. Active mainly in Palermo, he was called the Raphael of Sicily by his contemporaries. His most productive phase began in the 1630s, bringing altarpieces and, after his return to Sicily in 1637, fresco cycles such as the Life of Viceroy Moncada in the Palazzo dei Normanni. He was also an architect and stage designer. Wounded during the revolution in Palermo in 1647, he died of his injuries. Here: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ.