Matteo Marangoni

Matteo Marangoni (12 July 1876 – 1 June 1958) was an Italian art historian, art critic and composer. Marangoni’s art criticism aimed at identifying pure figurative values, in which an artwork’s poetic values are identified. His books are positively influenced by the school of Benedetto Croce and Heinrich Wölfflin, clarifying their concepts on the basis of observation and following logic as a science of pure concept. Life Born in Florence, Italy, to Maria Augusta Malvisi and her physics-teacher husband Carlo Marangoni, he took his secondary school diploma in 1896 but did not continue with his studies straight away, instead moving to London to indulge his passion for music. There he performed as a pianist and composed short pieces for voice and piano – Barcarola in 1897, Serenata in 1900, Le pastorelle montanine di Franco Sacchetti in 1901, Tre canti di Giacomo Leopardi in 1902 and Gavotta, also in 1902. He later returned to Florence and attended the Facoltà di scienze, graduating in 1905 in anthropology. He then moved to Paris and back to London as well as travelling in Germany, becoming interested in the figurative arts. On his second return to Italy in 1909 he took an art history