Sergio Codiferro: Painting Schio

I first "met" Sergio Codiferro in our Civic Library, when I saw a panel with different postcard size paintings about the doors and entrances in the city centre of Schio. It is an amazing panel with the doors and entrances of some of the famous landmark buildings of Schio. (In the image below - click on the images for a bigger view)

I looked for him on internet, but found very little. I went to the library to ask about him and found pictures of a couple of his paintings and a set of postcards about Schio, painted in early 1980s.

Finally, a search with some local groups, brought me in contact with his grand-daughter Alessandra, who agreed to meet me and to talk about her grandfather. She told me about him and about an exhibition of his works, which was held in Palazzo Toaldi Capra in Schio in October 2025, and shared some pictures from that exhibition.

Let me start with the biographic note about Sergio Codiferro, which was prepared by Sergio's two grand-daughters, Alessandra and her cousin Giulia, for his exhibition last year, that I have translated from Italian.

Sergio Codiferro: A Brief Biographic Note

"Sergio was born in Schio on 24 October 2025, he was a loving grandfather, father and husband.

At professional level, he had worked as a branch director a well-known multinational company, but his passions were art and history. He was able to bring together these two passions in his artworks. Proud of the city of his birth, he showed his love for Schio through his art. His artistic representations of the city were opulent, rich and fascinating.

This is what I and my cousin Giulia, we have tried to show through this exhibition, a kind of time-travel, that starts in the city centre and touches on all its landmarks, accompanied by figures dressed in 19th century costumes.

Apart from Schio, he also painted some nearby towns like Valli del Pasubio and some famous cities like Venice and Rome."

Alessandra Codiferro About Her Grandfather

I met Alessandra one day in the garden of our civic library and she shared more information about him. 

Alessandra's grandfather Sergio Codiferro died on 21 September 2019, and he was 94 years old. He was married to Ivanita Rompato, who had died in 2016. They had a son Massimo, Alessandra's father, and a daughter Nicoletta, Giulia's mother.

Their family was from Schio, they lived in the Santa Croce area, which was very different from how it looks today. When they had come to live in that house, all around were fields. Over time, more houses had been built in the area, making a more modern and developed part of the city.

Sergio had started painting when he had retired in early 1980s. Alessandra said, "I remember him always with a paint brush, busy painting. He had no formal training in art, he had been to some short courses for art-lovers and was mostly a self-learned artist. His working life was with a multinational company dealing with photographic reels for cameras, where he was a branch-director for the north-east part of Italy." (left - picture postcards of Sergio Codiferro's paintings of Schio monuments with the winter snow - click for a bigger view)

About his paintings, Alessandra said, "He started painting the scenes from the old photographs of Schio, but to those he added people dressed in 18th century dresses. As he did more artwork, his paintings became bigger and more structured. He painted all the principal landmarks of Schio such as Duomo and Piazza Rossi, and the streets of the city centre."

He had a passion for the churches and the Palladian villas and painted a large number of them. Apart from the paintings of Schio made on the basis of old photographs, he also travelled a lot and many of his paintings were inspired from those visits.

Sergio's father Vittorio was a photographer and in 1911, had opened the Codiferro Photography Studio in Schio (which is still active, though now managed by other persons and is located in Via Romano Rompato). Vittorio had two sons, Odino and Sergio.

Around the end of the second world war, around 1943-44, Sergio's elder brother Odino started managing the Codiferro photography studio. In that period, they used to hand-colour the black and white photographs and for a period, Sergio was involved in this painting work.

In October 2025, for Sergio's birth-centenary, an exhibition was organised by his family in Palazzo Toaldi Capra in Schio, where many of his paintings were presented (some of the images presented in this post are from that exhibition, and are provided by Alessandra). The exhibition started with a painting of Via Carducci, the area of the civic library of Schio and travelled along the paintings of the streets of Schio's city centre. It also had some of his bigger artworks. These included an aerial vision of Schio.

Schio in Sergio's images is similar to the city streets in the old pictures from the Paolo Marzari Printing Press's photography archives, about which I have already written some weeks ago in another post. The only difference is that in Sergio's paintings, there are people dressed in 18th and 19th century costumes. 

Sergio had also played a role in rediscovering a forgotten painting of 15th century artist Francesco Verla at the Cannossian nuns' home in Schio, which has some of the elements of his better-known artwork on St. Catherine located in St. Francis church of Schio.

The image below, shows one of Sergio's artworks that he had created for the Police services (Carabineri) of Schio. 

 

In the End

It was wonderful to meet Alessandra and to learn from her about her grandfather, Sergio Codiferro, who was a well-known artist of Schio. It would be important to ensure that his artworks are catalogued and their proper records are made, to be kept in the city documents.

Personally, I would like some of his more iconic works to be displayed in the new city museum in Palazzo Fogazzaro! 

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