(b Naples, 23 Feb 1835; d Rome, 28 July 1863). Italian painter. In 1849 he studied with the painter Luigi Stabile (b 1822) and in the following year he enrolled at the Istituto di Belle Arti in Naples, where he was taught by Camillo Guerra (1797–1852). At the same time he pursued literary studies, an interest that helped shape the anecdotal approach of his early work as a painter, as in his first exhibited picture, a Useless Repentance (exh. 1851; Rome, Avvocatura Stato), based on Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi’s novel La battaglia di Benevento (1827–8) but with an emphasis on psychological motivation. In 1852 he began to work with the painter Giuseppe Mancinelli (1813–75) in Naples, concentrating on the study of the nude while looking carefully at both ancient art and the work of such contemporary history painters as Francesco Hayez. He won various prizes at the Accademia in Naples, including one for the painting Ulysses and Diomedes Stealing the Palladium (1854; untraced; see Biancale, pl. XVII). Another strong influence on Celentano’s development was Domenico Morelli, who persuaded him to go to Rome. Through the landscape painter Achille Vertunni (1826–97) he came to know Tommaso Minardi, Francesco Coghetti and Nicola Consoni (1814–84), as well as German artists, especially Friedrich Overbeck.

• Celentano, Bernardo