Italian Realist Painter, 1826-1895
Italian painter. From 1843 to 1847 he attended the Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, studying drawing under Benedetto Servolini (1805-79) and Tommaso Gazzarini (1790-1853), then, briefly, painting under Giuseppe Bezzuoli. About 1847 he entered Luigi Mussini's school (see PURISMO), where the teaching emphasized the 15th-century Florentine principles of drawing and orderly construction. Then and for some years afterwards he continued to attend the Scuola del Nudo of the Accademia. After fighting in the military campaigns for Italian independence (1848-9) Lega resumed his training, this time under Antonio Ciseri, executing his first large-scale painting, Doubting Thomas (1850; Modigliana, Osp. Civ.). In 1852 he won the Concorso Trienniale dell'Accademia with David Placating Saul
