Ercole Lelli (14 September 1702 – 7 March 1766) was an Italian painter of the late-

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

, active mainly in Northern Italy, including his native city of

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...

, as well as

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

and

Piacenza Piacenza (; egl, label= Piacentino, Piaṡëinsa ; ) is a city and in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, and the capital of the eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with over ...

. Lelli was a pupil of the painter Giovanni Pietro Zanotti, but he also gravitated towards sculptural work. He excelled in the study of the anatomy of the human body as well as painting. Starting in 1742 he helped prepare artistic anatomical wax displays at the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna ( it, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, UNIBO) is a public research university in Bologna, Italy. Founded in 1088 by an organised guild of students (''studiorum''), it is the oldest university in continuo ...

. The wax modeler and anatomist

Giovanni Manzolini Giovanni Manzolini (1700-1755) was a Bolognese artist, an expert maker of wax anatomical models and a professor of anatomy at the University of Bologna. His wife Anna Morandi Manzolini also became a well-known maker of wax anatomical models. E ...

worked as his assistant from 1743. Manzolini resigned in late 1746 after three years. He felt bitterly that Lelli had deprived him of recognition for his greater knowledge of anatomy and anatomical sculpture. Nicolo Toselli was another of Lelli's pupils. In 1746 Lelli became a member of both the Bolognese art society,

Accademia Clementina The Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna ("academy of fine arts of Bologna") is a public tertiary academy of fine art in Bologna, in Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. It has a campus in Cesena. Giorgio Morandi taught engraving at the Accademia f ...

, and the science society, '' Istituto delle scienze''. He had completed many medals for the local Mint. A few pictures are extant, including a ''Virgin and child with St. Anthony of Padua and St. Clara'' for the church of Sant' Andrea delle Scuole at Bologna; and a ''St. Fidèle'' for the church of the Cappuccini at

. He was an eminent teacher of design, and in 1759 became director of the Academy at Bologna, the city where he died.Dizionario He has also left some engravings, such as ''Hagar and Ishmael''. A posthumous book with a few engravings, titled ''Anatomia esterna del corpo umano'' (External Anatomy of the Human Body) was published in Bologna.

Notable students

Giles Hussey Giles Hussey (1710–1788) was a painter from Dorset, England. His portraits are well regarded, but his theories on art never received the attention he craved. He believed that each note of music represented a colour. He created the first portra ...

References

* * S. Falabella, «LELLI (Lellj), Ercole». In: ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'', Roma: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, Vol. LXIX, 2005
on-line

External links

A Brief History
of the collection at the Museo delle cere anatomiche in

1702 births 1766 deaths 18th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Painters from Bologna Italian Baroque painters Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors Italian anatomists 18th-century Italian male artists {{Italy-painter-18thC-stub