Annibale Brugnoli trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Perugia.  He stayed briefly in Rome and then in Florence before undertaking further training in Naples.  He enjoyed international success at the Paris Exhibition of 1878.  His most prestigious commissions were in Rome included the decoration (1880) of Teatro Costanzi and the frescoes (1888) of the Stanza Napoleonica in the Palazzo del Quirinale (now the residence of the President of Italy). 

Perugia

Works Exhibited in Museo dell’ Academia

Works by Annibale Brugnoli exhibited in the Museo dell' Accademia di Belle Arti include:

1. ✴Savonarola in prison, which was painted when Brugnoli was a student at the Academy (not illustrated);
   

2. ✴two lovers (1872);
   

3. ✴a portrait of the artist’s wife (Teresa Serafini, not illustrated);
   

4. ✴the unsuccessful pleading of the fiancé of Fornaretto di Venezia to the magistrates of Venice before his execution in the 16th century; and
   

5. ✴the figure of a man.
   

Assumption of the Virgin (1863)

Works in Palazzo Graziani

The Banca di Perugia commissioned the decoration of what is now the Sala Brugnoli of Palazzo Graziani from Annibale Brugnoli.   TThe work comprised:

1. ✴the frescoes (1889-90) on the ceiling, which depict:
   

2. •a sacrifice to the goddess Cupra (illustrated above);
   

3. •Hannibal’s defeat of the Romans at Lake Trasimene;
   

4. •the defence of Torgiano by Rodolfo Baglioni and Ascanio della Corgna against Luigi Farnese during the Salt War; and
   

5. •St Francis and his followers praying for the victims of war in the valley to the right; and
   

6. 

   ✴five panels (1890-5) that depict scenes from the tumultuous history of Perugia in the 19th century:
   

7. •Benedetto Baglioni begins the demolition of Rocca Paolina after the rebellion of 1848;
   

8. •Francesco Guardabassi and other patriots demand the capitulation of the papal legate, Luigi Giordani in 1859;
   

9. •a scene of the following massacre by papal troops on 20th June 1859, set near San Domenico (illustrated here);
   

10. •a Piedmontese soldier on guard at Palazzo dei Priori in 1860, soon after Perugia became part of the newly-united Italy; and
    

11. •a Piedmontese soldier on guard at Palazzo dei Priori in 1860, soon after Perugia became part of the newly-united Italy; and
    

1. ✴this panel (1890-5) which depicts the inauguration of this room in Palazzo Graziani in 1890, after the completion of its ceiling frescoes, during the visit to Perugia of King Umberto I and Queen Margherita.
   

Dance of the Hours (ca. 1897)

Ferdinando Cesaroni commissioned this important fresco from Annibale Brugnoli for the ceiling of the room in Palazzo Cesaroni that is known as Sala Brugnoli.  This fresco, which is painted in the so-called Liberty Style, is illustrated on the website of the Consiglio Regionale dell' Umbria, which now owns the palace.  (Domenico Bruschi executed the female figures on the mirrors in this room and the fictive tapestries on the walls).

Todi

Arrival in Todi of Lodovico Ariosto

Annibale Brugnoli painted this scene on the fire curtain of Teatro Comunale di Todi.