Art and Dance: Two Passions of Lucio Mantese

As a child, Lucio Mantese had 2 passions - art and dance. Born in a humble family, where his father ran a Meat-shop in Schio, he went started working when he was fifteen. Yet, with his grit and determination, he has been able to create a life for himself, both as a successful artist and a dancer.

I am always trying to write about the creative persons, especially artists living in Schio and Alto-Vicentino, and it was a long time that I wanted to write about Lucio. He has an art gallery in the city and 2-3 years ago, I had told him that I wanted to interview him.

Recently (October 2025), there was an exhibition of five artists in the historical Toaldi Capra palazzo in Schio's city centre. Lucio was one of them. This gave me finally an opportunity to talk to him. This post tells his story in his own words. Click on the pictures for a bigger view.

Sunil: Lucio, you don't live in Schio any more, instead you live in Cogollo del Cengio. What happened, how did this decision of moving out came about?

Lucio: As a boy, I always wanted a home surrounded by greenery. I heard about this land in mountain in Cogollo del Cengio, which was surrounded by the forest and there I found the terrain to realise my dream. At that time, I didn't have enough money to buy it, so I had to take a bank loan, which I paid slowly. It is my dream home.

Sunil: Tell me about your interest for art.

Lucio: Already in the primary school, my teachers used to bring me the pictures of their children, asking me to make their portraits. This helped me to avoid mathematics, which I used to find very difficult. It was a God-given gift. When people ask me where did I learn painting, I tell them ask Pavarotti where did he learn to sing like that. It is a talent, a gift which I had.

Sunil: You didn't study art?

Lucio: I followed the great artists. For example, I learned from important painters who would make still life or landscapes. I could visit their art-studios, see them at work and learn from them. The person who first taught me art was Cesare Valle, though I am mostly self-taught. I did study for a couple of years at the Academia in Venice.

Another thing which helped me to learn art was an art-gallery owner who used to bring me renaissance period art for making their copies. I did this work for about 15 years and that was a big learning period for me, because to have the art-works of renaissance artists, to study them, to see how they had created and to recreate that. I was about 30 years old at that time when I started doing these copies of the famous art works.

Sunil: But the famous artists are so diverse, each with his own way of designing and using colours, how did you learn how to copy such different styles?

Lucio: I can copy only renaissance period art. This style requires that I first make a background like with water-colours, so that the art work does not start on a white canvas, but on another background such as grey. Then I let it dry. I work in layers and after each layer, I have to let it dry. This way of covering with layers of veils is important for renaissance period art.

For example, the blue cloaks that are part of the renaissance paintings by famous artists - I first paint it in black and white, and then with transparent veils of ultramarine or another shade of blue, I would cover it. The parts underneath which are dark remain dark and the parts which were white, they show the colours, but this gives a light to the colours.

Sunil: These specific techniques, how did you learn them?

Lucio: Now there are YouTube channels where you can learn everything, but I had the books of the famous artists in which they explained their way of working.

Sunil: Do you try to recreate such works with old pigments which were used in that period?

Lucio: No, I use the normal colours available in the market. Raffaello used beautiful pigments which continue to be beautiful even 500 years later. The modern colours, they started to be used by artists like Van Gogh, but his famous blues are becoming black. So we don't know what will happen to them.

Sunil: Among the renaissance period artists that you have duplicated, who do you like most?

Lucio: I love the works of Caravaggio. At the time he was painting, he was criticised because his figures looked real, they did not respect the artistic canons of that period. For example, look at the Madonna in this work, she looks like a poor pilgrim woman (points to a copy of a Caravaggio painting he has made). This is similar to our modern sensibility while many other renaissance figures in the paintings they are idealised, they look like the pictures of the saints.

Sunil: Tell me about this self-portrait, with the mountains and the river behind you.

Lucio: This is a recent work, I have painted myself sitting in my garden. It shows our mountains - Colletto di Velo, Summano and Pasubio. The one you call 'river', in reality there is a road passing there, I replaced it with a mountain path. I keep on making self-portraits and when I don't like it any more, I make a new one. I like this one because I think that it shows intensity.

Sunil: Apart from making copies, what other kind of paintings you like to make?

Lucio: I like the local landscapes of Veneto, I like to show them as dream-like landscapes. However, 90% of my work is making portraits commissioned by the people. They bring me the photographs. For example, a man brought me the picture of his wife when she was young and they had gone to some tropical country for their honeymoon. So when I made her portrait, I added more beauty to her and added a tropical background to it. He cried when he saw it, said that I had given him a wonderful memory of his wife.

Sunil: It is beautiful. How much time you need to make something like this?

Lucio: I am quick. Drying needs time, if it is a sunny day or I use a heater, it reduces that time. If we don't count that I can do it in a week.

Sunil: Do you paint everyday?

Lucio: From 9 in the morning, as long as there is sunlight, I am very disciplined. When I am working for too long, then I take a break by going to work in my garden. I look after the garden of our home.

Sunil: Apart from art, you are also passionate about dance, tell me about it.

Lucio: When I was twenty, there was a couple with whom I was very friendly, they loved dancing. Going out with them, I also started dancing, and I joined a dancing school. After the first lesson, I decided that I loved it and I wanted to do it for living. I saw the light, I said that I want to teach dancing. I studied dance in Padua, from one of the greats of dancing, a world champion and to learn from him I used to go to him from midnight till one in the night. Then became a professional and later opened my own dancing school.

I stopped the meat shop of my family that we had, even if my father was very upset about it, because that was the family activity - my father, brothers, grandfather had all worked there. Ten years later, he told me that he was wrong and that I had taken the right decision.

Sunil: Do you still have that dance school?

Lucio: Even though now I am old, but my dance school continues to work that to my son Daniele, who is twenty-six years old. He is national level dancer in Italy for standard dance and Latin dances. I took him to learn dance when he was six. Initially he was not very keen but I told him, when you grow up then you can decide if you want to continue it or not. When he became 18, he said that he wanted to continue it, he was already considered an A-level dancer. Eighteen is too late to start learning dancing, you need to start earlier. Thanks to him and his partner, our dancing school has found a new vitality.

Sunil: Thanks Lucio for giving me your time.  

You can check and contact him through Lucio's Facebook and Instagram pages, there you can also see pictures of his dance school and his son Daniele.

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Minotaur Myth To Talk About Diversity

The Greek myth of Minotaur was about the Minoan civilisation in the Crete island, around 3000 BCE.

In May this year, a theatre group (Campus Company) of Schio's Civic Theatre brought together the students from the different local schools to create a theatre performance on the myth of Minotaur, to talk about the themes of diversity and inclusion. (Click on the images for a bigger view)

This post is about that theatre performance called "Minotauro della Diversità" (Minotaur of Diversity).

Minoans and the Minotaur Myth 

Minoan was a Bronze age civilisation on the Crete island in the Aegean sea.

The myth says that king Mino didn't worship properly to the God Poseidon and the angered God made his queen fall in love with a bull (Taurus). Thus the queen gave birth to a ferocious half-man, half-bull creature called Minotaur, who was closed inside a labyrinth. King Mino asked Athenians to send human sacrifice for Minotaur. An Athenian young man called Theseus offered to be the sacrifice for Minotaur. He killed Minotaur and was able to escape the labyrinth with the help of a string given to him by the king's daughter who loved him.

Minotaur As a Symbol of Diversity

The symbolism of Minotaur for a child with disability seems very obvious. Manny civilisations had superstitions which saw disabled or diverse children as inauspicious and harbingers of bad luck.

In Italy, over the past couple of decades, there has been large scale migration and today the children of the migrants form a significant part of the students in Schio's schools. Thus, using the Minotaur's myth as the theme of a theatre performance was important to raise questions about and to discuss the issues of diversity and inclusion.

Civic Theatre of Schio

 The Civic Theatre of Schio is managed by a Foundation and it has different projects to promote community engagement and participation in its activities. The theatre was built in early 20th century through an initiative of industrialist Alessandro Rossi with active contribution of the citizens. Over the last few years, it has been repaired and restored to its old glory.

Apart from theatre performance, its activities include Campus Lab (to promote theatre among children and young adults) and Dance Well (dance therapy for persons with Parkinson and elderly persons).

Performance of Minotauro Della Diversità

The performance was the result of a workshop for the students and was directed by Ketti Grunchi (Piccionaia company) and Delfina Pevere. Around 30 students from different schools of Schio took part in it.

The stage set-up was simple and minimalist. A square wooden frame with curtains represented the palace or queen's room. Stones placed on the floor represented the labyrinth. All the actors had plain dark-grey pants and T-shirts, and the addition of a crown or a white mask denoted the king and Minotaur. Long pieces of curtain like materials held on the two sides, made the sea-waves. Persons on the stage were accompanied by readers, who sat on the stairs and provided commentary.

The images used with this post will give you some idea about the performance.

Conclusions

While watching the performance, I was thinking that I would have loved to take part in something like this when I was in school. We did do some plays in School, but they were really basic. While this performance with experienced play-writes and director, technical support though lights and sound, and the kind of preparation that must have gone into making it, would have been at a completely different level.

I think that it is wonderful and we are incredibly lucky that even in our tiny town of Schio, we have such a theatre and similar initiatives which contribute in stimulating creation for the students and a better quality of life for all of us residents.

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An Artist and His Grand-Daughter

Recently, we had an unusual art exhibition in Schio (click on the pictures for a bigger view).

It presented the works of a hidden artist, someone who had a passion for art, even while he worked in a wool factory and as a house-painter, white-washing the homes. And it was organised by his grand-daughter Alice who had promised her grandfather Romano Benazzi that one day she will organise an art exhibition for him.

The exhibition was called, Nonno Raccontami Un Quadro (Grandpa, tell me a picture).

Romano Benazzi's Life-Story

Romano was born in a village near Ferrara (Italy) in 1941. During the second World War, his father died while fighting in Ukraine. Raised by a single mother, he started working in the fields at a young age. When he was sixteeen, under a Government programme, he came to spend some days with a family in Pieve Belvicino, a few kilometres north of Schio in north-east part of Italy.

A couple of years later, he came back to Pieve in the same programme, but this time a guest of another set of families. Both these experiences created in him strong links of family and friendship, and he fell in love with the beauty of this mountainous area.

He found work with a local firm engaged in painting houses. It was also the period when he started sketching with pencil and charcoal. He fell in love with a local girl, and thus found his wife Gina, who worked in a bar in Pieve. He also took on a second work, at the Lanerossi wool mills of Pieve, while they came to live in Magre area of Schio. They had two children, Guido and Daniela.

Over the years he continued with his passion for art, experimenting with different art mediums including oil paints. After his retirement, he devoted himself completely to his art, in spite of developing Parkinson disease (a disease which causes tremors in hands and difficulties in movements).

Romano lives in a house of elderly persons and even if Parkinson disease limits his manual capabilities, in fact sometimes he doesn't like the results of his efforts, but he still continues to be an artist. The image below has one of his recent sketches with charcoal, where frustrated by his lack of control over his hand movements and unhappy with the result, he covered it with charcoal.

Conclusions

In these pictures you can see some of his works. I was deeply touched by the idea of his grand-daughter Alice, daughter of his son Guido, to honour her grand-father's works and to organise this exhibition in collaboration with the Municipality of Schio.

Though Romano Benazzi remains an unknown painter, his works remain confined to the homes of his family and friends, it is important that they were celebrated by his family and community.

 

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Sareo 2025 Street Art Festival

Schio's annual street art festival "Sareo" was held in the last week of June 2025. During this festival, the artists living in and around Schio are invited to put up their recent works for display in Via Pasubio in the city centre.

The old name of Via Pasubio was Via Sareo, which explains the name of this festival, which goes back to almost fifty years - it was suspended during the Covid years. The image below shows a view of the street with the art works. (You can click on any of the images below for a bigger view)

I want to share some of the art-works from this year's festival, that I liked. Our response to creative works including art, poetry, books, is very subjective. Thus, I am sure that some of the works that I liked, may not seem special to you and you would have chosen completely different works.

I am very fond of water-colour landscapes but this year, I didn't find any such landscape which I found outstanding. However, I also like abstract compositions and there were a few this year, which I liked.

These artists-artworks are not in any particular order.

Winner of Sareo 2024 - Giannino Scorzato: A jury of artists chooses the best artist, winner of Sareo festivals. Last year's winner was Giannino Scorzato from Valdagno. This year,  a solo exhibition of his works was held at the Toaldi-Capra palazzo as a part of Sareo festival.

A self-taught artist, Scorzato is also a mountaineer. He had started with oil paintings, but now he expresses himself mainly in beautiful and amazingly detailed pencil sketches. You can see one of his works from this exhibition in the image below, a portrait of a young girl.

I thought that this landscape by Teresa Vallese captured very well the special light, the landscape and the sea of Mykonos island, with its white houses, with its predominent blue and white colours in a simple way.

I liked the next painting because of its palette of pale colours, the diaphanous-delicate look and the way the flowers and abstract designs foreground the female figure. It is by Antonia Bortoloso from Schio, who is known for her feminine portraits and figures. There were two of her works in this edition of Sareo and I liked both of them. 

The next work has Australian aboriginal masks in pointillism style by Raffaella Rigadello - it reminded me of Andy Warhol's pop-art posters because of their colours and graphics. A handwritten note fixed near the artwork, probably written by the artist, pointed about the subjugation of Aboriginal people in Australia by the European settlers.

Mari Baldisserotto's water-colour of a beautiful girl with blue eyes made me think of the photograph of the Afghan girl by Steve McCurry which was used as cover-pic for National Geographic in 1985. I liked its colour composition and the girl's expression.

I like the way Giuseppe (Beppe) Fochesato uses shafts of light in his interiors. He had a few works in the festival and the one I have chosen has an old portico, probably from an old church with a door at the end. I love its colours and atmosphere.

The next is a water-colour by Egidio Carotta and it has a flower-pot fixed to the wall next to a gate. The painting gets its charm from the contrast in the colours of the bricks of the house, where red bricks are used to create a visual impact and give a shape to the painting.

I also liked the delicate flowers in the water-colour painting by Emanuela Minà from Schio. It had beautiful colours and composition. She also had another water-colour painting in the exhibition, but I liked this one more. 

The painting of a black galleon ship against an abstract background dominated by green colour, made me think of the film Pirates of the Caribbean and captain Jack Sparrow. I liked its dream like abstract effect. It is by Fabiola Carmelini.

Let me conclude by 3 works which I liked most in this year's Sareo. The first is an abstract composition by Luigi Bernardi. I would have preferred its lower part to be less definite and with paler colours, but still I found it intriguing.

The second is titled "Boy with a neckless" and is by Lorenzo Zanello. I liked its colours and the guy's expression. Every time I looked at it, it made me smile. It also reminds me of a guy I knew.

My favourite piece of art this year was this abstract work by Claudio dal Prà from Chiuppano. I am not able to explain why I liked it but I loved its complex colours, hidden figures and its composition. I like art which pulls me in and I can spend a long time trying to understand why I like it.

Conclusions

I think that it is very difficult for an artist to create a completely distinctive style, so that as soon as you see it you can say that it is by that artist. This also means that when you see works that use that style, you can say that this artist is inspired by that one.

However, developing a distinct style can also become a prison - then people expect you to keep on repeating that style forever. In that sense, creating a style of abstract art is much better because it can give you more freedom as an artist.

Regarding the artists whose works I have presented in this post, I was surprised that only a few of them have a social media presence. I feel that many of them, especially those who have not sacrificed years of life in the pursuit of art and have done other works while keeping art as a passion for the weekends or retirement, feel shy of calling themselves as artists and talking about their art.

***** 

Kimchi - Outsider's Gaze

Kimchi is a photo-exhibition on South Korea by Nadia Bagattin, which was held recently at Palazzo Toaldi Capra in Schio (Italy). The wide success of K-Pop, as well as, that of their TV serials, has created an international image and interest in South Korea. Nadia Bagattin's pictures in the Kimchi exhibition go behind that international image to look at the society, focusing especially on the contrasts between traditions and modernity.

I always find it interesting to understand how the outsiders look at countries and cultures, compared to the insiders. However, I have never been to S. Korea and I am not much informed about it, so to complete this exercise I should also look at works of some Korean photographers.

You can click on all the images in this write-up for a bigger view.

A Brief Talk with Nadia Bagattin About Kimchi Photo-Exhibition

While visiting the exhibition, I had a brief talk with Nadia Bagattin about her pictures in this exhibition, which is presented here.

Q:  You are a photographer for passion or professionally?

Nadia: For passion. I have studied multi-medial art at the Art Academy. I have been passionate about photography ever since I was a child and was gifted a camera.

Q: These days everyone clicks pictures everywhere, what is the meaning of being a photographer for you?

Nadia: My professor used to say that photographers are like painters, they paint with the light, to capture a moment, or an emotion. Everyone approaches it with their own ideas, so every photograph has a right to exist. Thus it does not matter, how many other pictures exist, for me it is a way to share my emotions from that moment.

Q: When you click pictures, what interests you more?

Nadia: I like to photograph persons, sometimes I am a very slow photographer. For example, if I arrive in a park, I would just sit there and look around for a long time, till there is something which strikes me emotionally and only then I click its picture.

Q: This was your third journey to South Korea. When you look back, was there anything different this time in terms of your photography, compared to your earlier visits?

Nadia: It was a very different experience The first time, I had gone very casually as a tourist, to meet some friends who had invited me. I didn't have any specific expectations. I used to listen to South Korean music and watch films and I had a vague idea of what I was going to find there. Later, I became passionate about it, I studied its history, now I have a better idea of its people and culture.

The first exhibition I had about S. Korea was last year, it had a more of a tourist kind of pictures - beautiful places that looked like picture postcards so that persons could feel attracted to visit the country. 

This exhibition is more visceral, I wanted to discover both sides, good and ugly of Korea. Like every country, it also has both, and I love them both.

Q: There are some pictures in the exhibition that look at the traditions, at dresses, at religious iconography and rituals. There are others that look at city life, such as the images of plastic toys in different colours.

Nadia: Yes, that is the aim of this exhibition, it is about contrasts, the two sides of the coin. Thus there is "pali-pali" (Korean way of saying "hurry up") side of Korean culture, as well as, the more traditional meditative side linked to zen, respectful of the nature and culture. So if you have noted these two sides, this is exactly what I wanted to achieve.

Q: If you could choose three pictures from this exhibition, which represent a significant moment for you, which pictures would you select?

Nadia: Let me think.

The first picture that I would choose would be one of these children. It is from a city where they had few tourists. They were very surprised to see me in their city. They said "Hello" to me to show that they knew English.

The second can be the two elderly persons and their boat (left). They were retired persons and were doing volunteer work to clean the algae from this lake. When I was clicking this picture, the man became aware and he told me that both of them were very old but were still strong and active. I like these interactions with people.

The third would be that of the man making an offering to the turtle statue. The elderly man is making this offering underneath the turtle which represents the eternal life, it was his prayer for a long life.

Conclusions

So what does the choice of her three favourite images from the exhibition tells us about her as a photographer? I think that it denotes her attention and preference towards human-interaction. 

I love talking to artists and photographers to understand what motivates them to create. My exchange with Nadia Bagattin was short and yet interesting. You can also see some of her other pictures on her Instagram page.

I was struck by her description of photography as a painting with light. I had a somewhat similar idea when I had called my old photo-blog as "Chaya-Chitrakar" - the painter of shadows.

Kimchi exhibition can be visited at Palazzo Toaldi Capra in Schio till Sunday 27 July 2025.

   

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Martini Art School Exhibition in Schio

Students of Schio's art school A. Martini, organise an annual art exhibition to present their works. This exhibition has hundreds of exhibits. This year I was able to visit it. It was wonderful to see Schio's familiar streets, buildings and monuments in their works.

This first image below is about some of the city streets and has art works by Fatima Sadkaoui, Eva dal Maistro and Giacomo Scarpati. (You can click on all the images in this post for a bigger view)

It is not possible to talk about all the works that I liked in this exhibition, I can only present a small selection of them. Who knows, one day one of these students will be a famous artist! This post is dedicated to all of them.

A. Martini Art School in Schio

The Martini art institute is part of the Tron-Zanella-Martini high schools. It has a 5 years course for art students including 2 years of general study which is common to all the students, followed by 3 years of specialised studies in 2 areas - figurative arts and architecture.

Many years ago, this art school had an evening course and I know some local artists who had done that. I wish they would again conduct an evening school or may be have an art course for elderly people - I would also like to join it.

Let me now show you some of the art works from the 2025 exhibition. They are no particular order. All the students in the art school learn about and work with all the different figurative art forms including designing, sketching, painting, graphics, sculpture etc. 

Some Sculptures

Some years ago, I had seen some computer made sculptures from 3D printers. Since they were made of resins, I had mixed feelings about them. I am sure that in future, a mix of CNC and 3D printing will make more human-made kind of sculptures but I am sure that good sculptor will always have a value.

The two sculptures on the sides in the image below are by Tommaso Guadagnin & Anita Peruzzo.

Perspectives

I liked the works using a kind of binocular effect in the drawings to show a different perspective of their subjects. The three works presented below are by Sofia Damoc, Andrea Busato & Angelica Guido.

Ex-Lanificio Conte

This art exhibition was held in SHED hall of the old Conte wool mill (ex-lanificio Conte). There were different art works of this building. The image below presents three of them - all the three have the building as seen from the Conte Square, through the artists' locations and colours are different. It has the art-works of  Alessandra Peron, Elisabeth Salin & Sofia Rapagnani.

City Landmarks

There were many art-works about the city landmarks. The two images below present some of them.

The first one has the Rossi monument and St Anthony church by Benedetta Valente, the civic theatre building by Agnese Gasparella & the Salesian sports' complex by Aurora dal Pezzo.

The second one has the works of different students including the Duomo church in the centre by Mariem Fatou.

Sketches and Graphic Designs

The image below has sketches and graphic designs by different students.

Self Portraits

To conclude this highlights-view of the exhibition here are some of the self-portraits based specific themes like water, air, etc. I liked this idea of the students imagining themselves as mythological or cosplay figures. (You can click on each image for a bigger view).

In Conclusion

It is not easy to be an independent artist and earn a decent living from it. Thus, I think that many of the students will probably end up doing some other day-time work and continue being an artist in their free times and week-ends, till some of them will find success and recognition.

Apart from the challenges of finding work related to art in today's world, I think that in future, in the kind of world that is coming, having a connection with art will be very important for the human experience. Whatever they will do in their lives, hopefully making and appreciating art will continue to enrich them.

So, best of luck to all the art students of Schio graduating this year.

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Life & Times of Almerico from Schio

Recently Cooperativa Trama organised a city walk to introduce the life and times of Almerico da Schio, known as the inventor of the first airship in Italy. Last year, I had visited the "Da Schio" family library, which has some precious manuscripts and written about the library as well as, about the first airship built by Almerico. This post focuses on some of the interesting things I learned from this city walk.

The image below is a street mural about Almerico in the city square dedicated to his name, built in the old lands of Da Schio family (click on the picture for a bigger view).

Before I start, a brief note - while Almerico's family used "Da Schio" (from Schio) as its family name, that appellation can also be added to persons from Schio, thus not all persons known as "da Schio" may necessarily belong to the family. 

Da Schio family tombs at St Francis church 

Our city walk started from this 13th century church of Schio, known for a beautiful painting of Francesco Verla and an old choir room made in wood at the back of its altar. This was an opportunity to talk about the family of Almerico.

Da Schio has been an important family in Schio since around 1500s when they had received the noble title of Count from the emperor. Almerico was born in 1836 in one of the family homes in Costozza, about 50 km from Schio. Some of the Da Schio family members are buried inside the St Francis church, where their tombs are located right in front of the altar, which can be recognised by the family coat-of-arms, which includes an imperial eagle and a two tailed mermaid.

It may have started as a humbler farming family and the earliest records are from 11-12th centuries. They owned all the farming land starting from the right and front of Schio's Duomo church in the city centre, up to the St Francis church and parts of Valletta.

One of the first well-known persons from the family was a Dominican priest in 13th century, Fr Giovanni da Schio. Another important person in the family was Girolamo da Schio (also known as G. Bencucci) in the 16 century, who was close to different popes and had become the bishop of Vaison in France, who was responsible for the nobility title of this family. Terracotta busts of both these persons can be seen the Jaquard gardens of Schio. 

Almerico's father was a well-known archaeologist and had a beautiful Gothic house in Corso Palladio in Vicenza, Ca d'Oro. Almerico became famous for making the first airship in Italy, which had its first flight in Schio in 1905.

The Football Arena in Valletta 

The family was also involved in construction of a sports arena in a natural depression called Valletta near the St Francis church in 1852, which had stairs around it for people to sit and watch football matches. Different personalities of Schio of that period, including Alessandro Rossi, Giovanni da Schio and Clemente Fusinato contributed funds to make the area oval-shaped and to build the stairs. Unfortunately, part of those stairs collapsed and some persons were injured. Those stairs were later removed, but the place with the depression, denoting the area still exists and used for play. The old print of the sports arena below is from Schio Cultura. In it, you can see Schio's Duomo church in the background (click on the image for a bigger view)

Schio's poet, Arnaldo Fusinato was also there to watch a match and later, he wrote a poem about playing football, titled, "Un impressione autunnale", in which a ball hit him on the face and he lost of one of his teeth. 

The Family Arch near St. Mary Chapel

All this area was farm-land of the Da Schio family, and was known as "Brolo del signor Conte".

The road coming down from the Castel-hill and going towards St. Francis was separated from the farm by a wall on both sides, part of which can be seen in the old photograph on the signboard near the St Mary chapel from 1400s.

Near the chapel, there was the old water spring called Gaminella, water from which went into Gaminella canal today mostly hidden under Via Gaminella, except for a tiny bit close to the chapel. There was a time, when this canal ended in a lake in this area.

An arch built during 1700s still remains from the old wall. If you look carefully, you can see the coat of arms with twin-tailed mermaid and the words F.S. for the Da Schio family on the arch. The arch has two pyramid-shaped decorations resting on round stones on the sides. Some years ago, a professor noticed that there are Latin words written on the arch. These words are mostly family recommendations to the people, such as, "One who asks will receive and who knocks on the door, it will be opened", "Stealers remain always poor",and, "Don't take loan if you can't pay". The image below shows the arch.

Later, part of Da Schio family building in front of Duomo church was demolished to create Via Capitano Sella.  

Almerico and Meteorology

Almerico studied law but he was not interested in that subject. He had interest in mathematics, astronomy, science and photography. While studying law in Padua, he had been an assistant to well-known astronomer Prof. Virgilio Trettenero. In those years, this part of Italy was under Austria and Almerico took part in cavort liberation and resistance activities.

His first job was as the director of the meteorological centre of Olympic Academy of Vicenza, which had one observatory. He recognised that this new discipline needed better understanding and decided to care observation centres in all the province. Over a period of next 20 years, he would help in creating 200 observation centres to study temperatures, rains, storms, etc., including in neighbouring regions, including one of the first centres in Schio in 1873, located on his own land (Image below shows the family gate with the twin-tailed siren from the coat of arms and the area where the meteorological centre was located) .

Bringing together all the data he had collected, he contributed to the foundation of national centre of meteorology. Development of this discipline also contributed to development of more precise measuring instruments.

The study of weather patterns was very useful for agriculture, including their own farm production. He helped his brother, engaged in agriculture in Costozza to start a new activity, growing cave-mushrooms.

Almerico's Collaborators & Friends 

Different persons collaborated with him on this. In Schio, his administrator Matteo Manea and his wife Minimina, were tasked with daily checking and noting the temperatures at specific times - 9 AM, 3 PM & 9 PM.

Almerico also wanted to create a centre for observing storms, for this he found a collaborator in Giovanni dal Pozzo, who was a tailor but who had a passion for astronomy and sciences. He was also a musician, playing Viola and a poet in the local dialect of Schio, and had translated an opera, Oralando Furioso, in the dialect. He had a big family and his wife had died. He also started a tavern called Osteria Cantarana, to earn some more money, on Almerico's land in the area near Via Baratto. Almerico helped him to get good wines for this tavern. 

Giovanni and Almerico became friends. Almerico wrote a booklet about instruments used for meteorological observations and in this mentioned the work of Giovanni.

Another friend of Almerico was Don Francesco Faccin, a local priest born in 1871, who was interested in astronomy. Schio's astronomical observatory located on Monte Novegno is named after Don Faccin and there is a city street in his name. Almerico wrote to Queen Margherita, to ask for a telescope for Don Faccin and this request was accepted by the queen. 

Another collaborator of Almerico was Giacomo Moracchioli who lived in Via Fusinato, in front of the church dedicated to St. Bakhita. He was a historian and interested in astronomy. He was in charge of the meteorological centre of Schio. He had build an observation tower on his roof. Both Almerico and Giacomo were passionate about mountains, and were part of the group which had created the Alpine group of Schio, which later became part of CAI-Vicenza (Italian Alpine Club) and introduced the importance of scientific study of the mountains.

Schio's Aqueduct

One of Almerico's most important contributions to Schio was the construction of city's water supply though an aqueduct. The idea of bringing water from surrounding mountains started being discussed in 1870s, because the city had grown and industries had polluted the local water sources. A priest called Don Michele Saccardo started the campaign for the aqueduct.

The first study on how to make an aqueduct was paid by Alessandro Rossi. This project proposed bringing water from the area of Poleo in cast iron pipes, but was considered too costly. A second project with stone-tubes was proposed, which reduced the cost a little but it was still considered too much.

Then Don Saccardo spoke to Almerico, who came up with a third project, which was approved by the municipal authorities but they didn't have the funds to cover all its cost. Almerico asked the citizens to make donations for building the aqueduct. About 100 families were promised that water-pines will come to their homes, while there will be public taps in 14 locations of the city.

The fund-collection was successful and the aqueduct was inaugurated on 18 June 1872, with a fountain with a nymph and a 27 metres high water-jet in front of Duomo. (Image show a painting belonging to Angela Rossi showing the aqueduct inauguration)

In Conclusion

Almerico da Schio had played an important role in carrying forward the ideas of scientific knowledge in 19th-20th centuries in different fields, especially astronomy, meteorology and air-ships. Italy's queen Margherita had come to Schio on 1 July 1905 to see one of his flights.

This post, based on a walking tour organised by Cooperativa Trama in 2025, focuses on some aspects of Almerico's life.

You can also check my post from 2024, in which I had written about Almerico's airship and the old books in his family's library in Schio.

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