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Pisani, Lazzaro
(b Zebbug, Malta, 15 Dec 1854; d San Pawl il Bahar, Malta, 31 Aug 1932). Maltese painter. In 1870 he went to Rome, where he studied at the British School and at the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca under Luigi Fontana (1827–1908), a disciple of Tommaso Minardi, who impressed upon him the importance of good drawing. In Malta he was the only serious rival of Giuseppe Calì, but though in constant demand as a painter for churches he never enjoyed Calì’s great reputation. Pisani remained faithful to his Neo-classical training, but in order to compete with Calì he was forced to adopt a more colourful and vivacious manner that was not always successful. His most ambitious undertaking was the decoration of the ceiling in the parish church of Nadur (1910) on the island of Gozo, consisting of approximately 150 paintings illustrating the lives of St Peter and St Paul. They were executed on canvas and glued to the stone vault. The major canvases, such as the classically inspired Fall of Simon Magus, are noteworthy for their colour and vigour, but the figure drawing is sometimes weak. Most of his other paintings are similarly very uneven in quality.
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