Portrait of Antonio Crocetti

Antonio Crocetti (1862 - 1932), born in Ascoli Piceno (his father is a noted civil lawyer from Ascoli, founder of the local branch of the Savings Bank and President of the Bar Association), he graduated in law in Bologna and after an initial period in which he practices as a freelance, he enters the Prefecture, carrying out his task in the public administration, almost always employed in the sector of Public Beneficial Institutions in many cities of Italy, including Bergamo. The proximity to Milan allows him to go to the Lombard capital. He spent the last fifteen years of his life in the Marche, where he had returned to live. In his will he dedicates his assets to movable and immovable assets of about 500,000 lire to the Ospedale Maggiore, appointing Riccardo Ricci, a lawyer friend of him who resided in Milan, son of the famous jurist Francesco. An anecdote says that close to dying he recommended to have a beautiful coffin to make a good impression when "the gentlemen of the Ospedale Maggiore" came to Milan for his funeral and that he wanted it covered in satin because it went to "to live" in a cemetery in the mountains and "up there will be cold". The portrait of the benefactor is commissioned to the painter from the Marches Anselmo Bucci, who uses as a model for the features of the face a photo ID also used for the lawyer's obituary. The artist solves the poverty of the iconographic documentation depicting the benefactor during a visit by car to the family farm "Castello Villa Sport", left as a legacy to the Ca 'Granda, represented in the background and of which the photo archive of the Hospital Archive also preserves several photographs. The painter is thus able to paint a scene of life lived alluding at the same time to the donation.