Vincenzo Galdi (11 October 1871 – 23 December 1961) was an Italian model and photographer. Galdi is regarded as a pioneer in Italian erotic photography. He is known to be first to depict an erect penis in artistic photography that had long been a taboo even in paintings and sculptures. He was predominately homosexual, until age 34 when he married and fathered three children, thereby redefining himself as a bisexual.
Early years
His father Vincenzo Galdi Sr. was one of the descendants of an ancient Italian noble house with title of baron, one of whose ancestors was a Norman knight, who participated in liberation of Salerno from the Saracens. He belonged to a branch, which in the middle of the eighteenth century had settled in Marigliano and inherited the title of Castelan of Ischia and Procida, as well as Lord of Corleone in Sicily. Elder Vincenzo was a banker and owner of a hat factory. Vincenzo Galdi's mother, Rosa D'Amore, was the sister of the mayor of Marigliano, Italy.
Naples
Vincenzo Galdi was enrolled in the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. Galdi aspired to be an actor before changing to photography. He played the role of Aniello, in "The Camorristi (Mafia) Family in Vicaria Prison" performed on stage at age 19 in 1890 at the Theater Folly of Naples. From 1887, (age 16) until 1890, (age 19) young Galdi worked in theater as a set designer, instrumentalist and actor with the Eduardo Scarpetta's company and later with Alberto Cozzella and Vincenzo Esposito's company. During his studies the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples, Galdi was especially impressed with optics and photographic technique, even building a wooden camera with a telescopic lens by himself. As a student he worked at the studio of Giorgio Sommer at his photographic studio on Via Monte di Dio which inspired him to change his studies from theater to photography. Galdi started to study with German homosexual photographer Wilhelm "Guglielmo" Plüschow, who had moved to Naples and set up a studio in Naples in the early part of 1887. Sixteen-year-old Galdi was strikingly good-looking and modeled in the nude for Plüschow at that time. (Galdi begin having sex with the photographer and introduced him to other Italian male youths that were open to engaging in sex with other males. Young 19th Century males in Italy were rarely monogamous, and largely homosexual until they married around age thirty, and fathered children.) The economic default of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the decline of Naples art scene led then 19-year-old Galdi to leave Naples and move to Rome with Guglielmo Plüschow.
Rome
When he arrived in Rome in 1890, Galdi lived with his older sister Eutilia until he bought a penthouse with terrace on Via Sardegna 55 in the new Ludovisi district, still suburban at that time. Once he acquired the penthouse Guglielmo Plüschow later joined him there. Galdi later opened a studio on Via Campania 45, not far from the apartment. Galdi specialized in feminine male and masculine male nude art, becoming soon the most well-known author of the time in that genre in third place after Plüschow and Plüschow' s cousin Wilhelm von Gloeden . Galdi also produced portraits and some of his photographs were sold as postcards. The Via Campania studio also served as an art gallery.
When Plüschow arrived in Rome the two continued their collaboration they started in Naples. This fact is documented by a letter by Theodore F. Dwight, director of the Boston Public Library, (sent in January 1896) in which he described his visit to the studio of the photographers:
"Plüschow was not present in person, but his assistant was, and I was given every pleasure to see his collection, apparently without expecting me to buy it. While we were talking, the beautiful Italian, with black hair and mustache, a rather vigorous build and wide shoulders, over the age of 24, who seemed anxious to be to be noticed and acted as a master of the place. I asked and learned that it was Vincenzo Galdi, the model of many of Plüschow' s photos. He posed for those laying on the wall, with a band around his head. He also posed along with Edoardo, (a most beautiful 17-year-old) in an infinite number of other photos. I told him that I knew him from the tip of his feet to the top of his head and he immediately became very talkative, showing me all his preferred poses. We have established such friendly relationships as I have now the privilege of taking pictures in the studio of Plüschow and pictures of the Plüschow models."
The partnership with Plüschow likely lasted until 1902, given that the following year Galdi moved into his own studio to Corso Umberto 333, where he worked with two assistants that were also models and sex partners: Pietro Magnotti and Enrico Simoncini that also appeared in both Plüschow and Von Gloden photographs. Among the photographs attributed explicitly to Galdi are a series of shots commissioned by English painter Robert Hawthorn Kitson, depicting Carlo Kitson, his barely pubescent young lover from Taormina, whom Kitson had legally adopted as his son. The photographs bear the stamp of Galdi with the address of via Sardegna 55 and are dated 1906.
Galdi's scandal of the Naiads fountain in 1901
When the sculptor Mario Rutelli received a commission to renew the 'Naiads fountain' on Piazza della Repubblica he collaborated with Galdi. They met at one of masonic lodges, to which Galdi and Rutelli belonged. Galdi had just returned from Paris, where he visited exhibition of Rodin, and was describing the great art of French sculptor, when Rutelli blurted out: "Vincenzo, I want new models, I'll show you what Rodin has conceived in a dark museum. I'm Sicilian and I will put my own statues in a bath of light so that they will look alive." Galdi procured the models and photographed them, finding shots suitable for his ideas and those of the Mario Rutelli. The sculptor created casts from these nude photographs of pagan nymphs, which immediately created outrage in conservative circles. The question was raised at the session of the City Council, during which some clerics and conservative opponents, offended by the proud nudity of the naiads, asked the mayor for immediate removal of the statues from the fountain. Instead, the city council decided to simply cover the fountain with a fence in order to prevent the public from seeing the statues. One councilor asked to start an investigation against Galdi and Rutelli. Photographs and drawings were seized. All ended up in the press with Avanti defending the sculptures and L'Osservatore Romano judging them as "a gross", criticizing them sharply from an artistic and moral point of view. The situation was resolved spontaneously one night when a group of students destroyed the fence, thereby reopening the monument to the public. Today it is considered one of the major artistic fountains of Rome and tourist often are photographed in front of the fountain.
In 1902, (at age 31) Galdi married Virginia Guglielmi (12 April 1885 – 24 May 1941), an elementary school teacher. They had three male children together: Ernesto Theodor (b. 1903), Vincenzo (b. 1904), nicknamed Vincenzino, and Michelangelo (b. 1917). Nevertheless, Galdi continued his collaborations with Plüschow that ultimately caused Galdi a lot of problems with the law.
Plüschow scandals
In 1902 Plüschow was charged with "solicitation to prostitution" and "seduction of minors" and had to spend eight months in jail in Rome. After Galdi's first two children were born Plüschow and Galdi traveled across the Mediterranean to Algeria in northern Africa in late 1904 where they lived and worked for three years, (Galdi sent money home to his wife and children in Rome during that time). Another scandal occurred in 1907 in Algeria in northern Africa where Plüschow once again got into trouble when parents of young boys complained to the authorities about the photographer having anal sex with their sons' bottoms that he paid to be his models. Plüschow was imprisoned in Algeria in 1907, Galdi returned to Rome and the two men never saw each other again. After being released from prison three years later, Plüschow left Italy for good in 1910 and returned to Berlin when he remained until he died. There are no extant documents that show the 1907 Algerian trial involved Galdi as well. Galdi was involved in the earlier 1902 Rome scandal, but not for sex with the models, but simply for selling their nude photos. A 1902 letter written by Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson, (January 29, 1858 – July 23, 1942) an American writer, (that used the pseudonym Xavier Mayne) mentions G. – a famous Rome nude photographer being arrested and sentenced for "outraging public morals" due to overly audacious photographs for sale everywhere, even in Rome. The American writer was in Rome at the time of the trial. After studying law, Stevenson had decided to become a writer and a journalist. In 1901 he moved to Europe due to the more friendly atmosphere towards homosexuality, living first in Florence, Italy and later in Lausanne, Switzerland where he died of a heart attack in 1942.
Art trade
Around the time when Guglielmo Plüschow left Rome for Berlin in 1910, Vincenzo Galdi abandoned photography and concentrated on the art trade having had quite enough of Plüschow and his "throw caution to the wind" lifestyle. Galdi opened an art gallery in Rome, in Via del Babuino, he called the "Galleria Galdi". He started the art trade with organizing exhibition and selling futurist works of Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni with help of Anton Giulio Bragaglia and his brothers. Some traditionalist painters protested the lude art in the exhibition and broke the window of Galdi's gallery, even damaging some works. Originally the gallery was located at the same building as the Galdi's studio and then moved to via Sistina,75, where it stayed until early 1920s. It changed locations several until it was moved to via Baburino 180. The gallery remained there until the end of 1950s, when Galdi closed it due to his old age and failing health due to prostate cancer.
Vincenzo Galdi was known to bring regional Italian and international artist to Rome. Galdi's grandson remembers that he was the one who brought to fame contemporary Roman painters Onorato Carlandi and Pio Joris. He was a good friend with American art historian Bernard Berenson. Berenson learned the technic of macrophotography from Galdi as a tool to study art works. Vincenzo Galdi's son, Ernesto, who was suffered from poliomyelitis, lived for a few years with Berenson on his villa in Settignano near Florence, because at that time Florence was the only place in Italy, where the treatment for the illness was available. Despite Galdi's liberal views, he was called to be the part of panel of experts for the protection against art counterfeit by National Fascist Federation of Art Dealers.
Death
Vincenzo Galdi died in Rome on December 20, 1961, in The Zappalà Clinic, where he had been hospitalized with advanced prostate cancer. He was buried on the 23rd of the same month on the cemetery of Verano, near his wife Virginia, who had died in 1941.
(Source: Wikipedia - Edited for clarity, chronology, and errors in historical content.)
Early years
His father Vincenzo Galdi Sr. was one of the descendants of an ancient Italian noble house with title of baron, one of whose ancestors was a Norman knight, who participated in liberation of Salerno from the Saracens. He belonged to a branch, which in the middle of the eighteenth century had settled in Marigliano and inherited the title of Castelan of Ischia and Procida, as well as Lord of Corleone in Sicily. Elder Vincenzo was a banker and owner of a hat factory. Vincenzo Galdi's mother, Rosa D'Amore, was the sister of the mayor of Marigliano, Italy.
Naples
Vincenzo Galdi was enrolled in the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. Galdi aspired to be an actor before changing to photography. He played the role of Aniello, in "The Camorristi (Mafia) Family in Vicaria Prison" performed on stage at age 19 in 1890 at the Theater Folly of Naples. From 1887, (age 16) until 1890, (age 19) young Galdi worked in theater as a set designer, instrumentalist and actor with the Eduardo Scarpetta's company and later with Alberto Cozzella and Vincenzo Esposito's company. During his studies the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples, Galdi was especially impressed with optics and photographic technique, even building a wooden camera with a telescopic lens by himself. As a student he worked at the studio of Giorgio Sommer at his photographic studio on Via Monte di Dio which inspired him to change his studies from theater to photography. Galdi started to study with German homosexual photographer Wilhelm "Guglielmo" Plüschow, who had moved to Naples and set up a studio in Naples in the early part of 1887. Sixteen-year-old Galdi was strikingly good-looking and modeled in the nude for Plüschow at that time. (Galdi begin having sex with the photographer and introduced him to other Italian male youths that were open to engaging in sex with other males. Young 19th Century males in Italy were rarely monogamous, and largely homosexual until they married around age thirty, and fathered children.) The economic default of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the decline of Naples art scene led then 19-year-old Galdi to leave Naples and move to Rome with Guglielmo Plüschow.
Rome
When he arrived in Rome in 1890, Galdi lived with his older sister Eutilia until he bought a penthouse with terrace on Via Sardegna 55 in the new Ludovisi district, still suburban at that time. Once he acquired the penthouse Guglielmo Plüschow later joined him there. Galdi later opened a studio on Via Campania 45, not far from the apartment. Galdi specialized in feminine male and masculine male nude art, becoming soon the most well-known author of the time in that genre in third place after Plüschow and Plüschow' s cousin Wilhelm von Gloeden . Galdi also produced portraits and some of his photographs were sold as postcards. The Via Campania studio also served as an art gallery.
When Plüschow arrived in Rome the two continued their collaboration they started in Naples. This fact is documented by a letter by Theodore F. Dwight, director of the Boston Public Library, (sent in January 1896) in which he described his visit to the studio of the photographers:
"Plüschow was not present in person, but his assistant was, and I was given every pleasure to see his collection, apparently without expecting me to buy it. While we were talking, the beautiful Italian, with black hair and mustache, a rather vigorous build and wide shoulders, over the age of 24, who seemed anxious to be to be noticed and acted as a master of the place. I asked and learned that it was Vincenzo Galdi, the model of many of Plüschow' s photos. He posed for those laying on the wall, with a band around his head. He also posed along with Edoardo, (a most beautiful 17-year-old) in an infinite number of other photos. I told him that I knew him from the tip of his feet to the top of his head and he immediately became very talkative, showing me all his preferred poses. We have established such friendly relationships as I have now the privilege of taking pictures in the studio of Plüschow and pictures of the Plüschow models."
The partnership with Plüschow likely lasted until 1902, given that the following year Galdi moved into his own studio to Corso Umberto 333, where he worked with two assistants that were also models and sex partners: Pietro Magnotti and Enrico Simoncini that also appeared in both Plüschow and Von Gloden photographs. Among the photographs attributed explicitly to Galdi are a series of shots commissioned by English painter Robert Hawthorn Kitson, depicting Carlo Kitson, his barely pubescent young lover from Taormina, whom Kitson had legally adopted as his son. The photographs bear the stamp of Galdi with the address of via Sardegna 55 and are dated 1906.
Galdi's scandal of the Naiads fountain in 1901
When the sculptor Mario Rutelli received a commission to renew the 'Naiads fountain' on Piazza della Repubblica he collaborated with Galdi. They met at one of masonic lodges, to which Galdi and Rutelli belonged. Galdi had just returned from Paris, where he visited exhibition of Rodin, and was describing the great art of French sculptor, when Rutelli blurted out: "Vincenzo, I want new models, I'll show you what Rodin has conceived in a dark museum. I'm Sicilian and I will put my own statues in a bath of light so that they will look alive." Galdi procured the models and photographed them, finding shots suitable for his ideas and those of the Mario Rutelli. The sculptor created casts from these nude photographs of pagan nymphs, which immediately created outrage in conservative circles. The question was raised at the session of the City Council, during which some clerics and conservative opponents, offended by the proud nudity of the naiads, asked the mayor for immediate removal of the statues from the fountain. Instead, the city council decided to simply cover the fountain with a fence in order to prevent the public from seeing the statues. One councilor asked to start an investigation against Galdi and Rutelli. Photographs and drawings were seized. All ended up in the press with Avanti defending the sculptures and L'Osservatore Romano judging them as "a gross", criticizing them sharply from an artistic and moral point of view. The situation was resolved spontaneously one night when a group of students destroyed the fence, thereby reopening the monument to the public. Today it is considered one of the major artistic fountains of Rome and tourist often are photographed in front of the fountain.
In 1902, (at age 31) Galdi married Virginia Guglielmi (12 April 1885 – 24 May 1941), an elementary school teacher. They had three male children together: Ernesto Theodor (b. 1903), Vincenzo (b. 1904), nicknamed Vincenzino, and Michelangelo (b. 1917). Nevertheless, Galdi continued his collaborations with Plüschow that ultimately caused Galdi a lot of problems with the law.
Plüschow scandals
In 1902 Plüschow was charged with "solicitation to prostitution" and "seduction of minors" and had to spend eight months in jail in Rome. After Galdi's first two children were born Plüschow and Galdi traveled across the Mediterranean to Algeria in northern Africa in late 1904 where they lived and worked for three years, (Galdi sent money home to his wife and children in Rome during that time). Another scandal occurred in 1907 in Algeria in northern Africa where Plüschow once again got into trouble when parents of young boys complained to the authorities about the photographer having anal sex with their sons' bottoms that he paid to be his models. Plüschow was imprisoned in Algeria in 1907, Galdi returned to Rome and the two men never saw each other again. After being released from prison three years later, Plüschow left Italy for good in 1910 and returned to Berlin when he remained until he died. There are no extant documents that show the 1907 Algerian trial involved Galdi as well. Galdi was involved in the earlier 1902 Rome scandal, but not for sex with the models, but simply for selling their nude photos. A 1902 letter written by Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson, (January 29, 1858 – July 23, 1942) an American writer, (that used the pseudonym Xavier Mayne) mentions G. – a famous Rome nude photographer being arrested and sentenced for "outraging public morals" due to overly audacious photographs for sale everywhere, even in Rome. The American writer was in Rome at the time of the trial. After studying law, Stevenson had decided to become a writer and a journalist. In 1901 he moved to Europe due to the more friendly atmosphere towards homosexuality, living first in Florence, Italy and later in Lausanne, Switzerland where he died of a heart attack in 1942.
Art trade
Around the time when Guglielmo Plüschow left Rome for Berlin in 1910, Vincenzo Galdi abandoned photography and concentrated on the art trade having had quite enough of Plüschow and his "throw caution to the wind" lifestyle. Galdi opened an art gallery in Rome, in Via del Babuino, he called the "Galleria Galdi". He started the art trade with organizing exhibition and selling futurist works of Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni with help of Anton Giulio Bragaglia and his brothers. Some traditionalist painters protested the lude art in the exhibition and broke the window of Galdi's gallery, even damaging some works. Originally the gallery was located at the same building as the Galdi's studio and then moved to via Sistina,75, where it stayed until early 1920s. It changed locations several until it was moved to via Baburino 180. The gallery remained there until the end of 1950s, when Galdi closed it due to his old age and failing health due to prostate cancer.
Vincenzo Galdi was known to bring regional Italian and international artist to Rome. Galdi's grandson remembers that he was the one who brought to fame contemporary Roman painters Onorato Carlandi and Pio Joris. He was a good friend with American art historian Bernard Berenson. Berenson learned the technic of macrophotography from Galdi as a tool to study art works. Vincenzo Galdi's son, Ernesto, who was suffered from poliomyelitis, lived for a few years with Berenson on his villa in Settignano near Florence, because at that time Florence was the only place in Italy, where the treatment for the illness was available. Despite Galdi's liberal views, he was called to be the part of panel of experts for the protection against art counterfeit by National Fascist Federation of Art Dealers.
Death
Vincenzo Galdi died in Rome on December 20, 1961, in The Zappalà Clinic, where he had been hospitalized with advanced prostate cancer. He was buried on the 23rd of the same month on the cemetery of Verano, near his wife Virginia, who had died in 1941.
(Source: Wikipedia - Edited for clarity, chronology, and errors in historical content.)
Vincenzo Galdi (11 October 1871 – 23 December 1961) was an Italian model and photographer. Galdi is regarded as a pioneer in Italian erotic photography. He is known to be first to depict an erect penis in artistic photography that had long been a taboo even in paintings and sculptures. He was predominately homosexual, until age 34 when he married and fathered three children, thereby redefining himself as a bisexual.
Early years
His father Vincenzo Galdi Sr. was one of the descendants of an ancient Italian noble house with title of baron, one of whose ancestors was a Norman knight, who participated in liberation of Salerno from the Saracens. He belonged to a branch, which in the middle of the eighteenth century had settled in Marigliano and inherited the title of Castelan of Ischia and Procida, as well as Lord of Corleone in Sicily. Elder Vincenzo was a banker and owner of a hat factory. Vincenzo Galdi's mother, Rosa D'Amore, was the sister of the mayor of Marigliano, Italy.
Naples
Vincenzo Galdi was enrolled in the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. Galdi aspired to be an actor before changing to photography. He played the role of Aniello, in "The Camorristi (Mafia) Family in Vicaria Prison" performed on stage at age 19 in 1890 at the Theater Folly of Naples. From 1887, (age 16) until 1890, (age 19) young Galdi worked in theater as a set designer, instrumentalist and actor with the Eduardo Scarpetta's company and later with Alberto Cozzella and Vincenzo Esposito's company. During his studies the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples, Galdi was especially impressed with optics and photographic technique, even building a wooden camera with a telescopic lens by himself. As a student he worked at the studio of Giorgio Sommer at his photographic studio on Via Monte di Dio which inspired him to change his studies from theater to photography. Galdi started to study with German homosexual photographer Wilhelm "Guglielmo" Plüschow, who had moved to Naples and set up a studio in Naples in the early part of 1887. Sixteen-year-old Galdi was strikingly good-looking and modeled in the nude for Plüschow at that time. (Galdi begin having sex with the photographer and introduced him to other Italian male youths that were open to engaging in sex with other males. Young 19th Century males in Italy were rarely monogamous, and largely homosexual until they married around age thirty, and fathered children.) The economic default of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the decline of Naples art scene led then 19-year-old Galdi to leave Naples and move to Rome with Guglielmo Plüschow.
Rome
When he arrived in Rome in 1890, Galdi lived with his older sister Eutilia until he bought a penthouse with terrace on Via Sardegna 55 in the new Ludovisi district, still suburban at that time. Once he acquired the penthouse Guglielmo Plüschow later joined him there. Galdi later opened a studio on Via Campania 45, not far from the apartment. Galdi specialized in feminine male and masculine male nude art, becoming soon the most well-known author of the time in that genre in third place after Plüschow and Plüschow' s cousin Wilhelm von Gloeden . Galdi also produced portraits and some of his photographs were sold as postcards. The Via Campania studio also served as an art gallery.
When Plüschow arrived in Rome the two continued their collaboration they started in Naples. This fact is documented by a letter by Theodore F. Dwight, director of the Boston Public Library, (sent in January 1896) in which he described his visit to the studio of the photographers:
"Plüschow was not present in person, but his assistant was, and I was given every pleasure to see his collection, apparently without expecting me to buy it. While we were talking, the beautiful Italian, with black hair and mustache, a rather vigorous build and wide shoulders, over the age of 24, who seemed anxious to be to be noticed and acted as a master of the place. I asked and learned that it was Vincenzo Galdi, the model of many of Plüschow' s photos. He posed for those laying on the wall, with a band around his head. He also posed along with Edoardo, (a most beautiful 17-year-old) in an infinite number of other photos. I told him that I knew him from the tip of his feet to the top of his head and he immediately became very talkative, showing me all his preferred poses. We have established such friendly relationships as I have now the privilege of taking pictures in the studio of Plüschow and pictures of the Plüschow models."
The partnership with Plüschow likely lasted until 1902, given that the following year Galdi moved into his own studio to Corso Umberto 333, where he worked with two assistants that were also models and sex partners: Pietro Magnotti and Enrico Simoncini that also appeared in both Plüschow and Von Gloden photographs. Among the photographs attributed explicitly to Galdi are a series of shots commissioned by English painter Robert Hawthorn Kitson, depicting Carlo Kitson, his barely pubescent young lover from Taormina, whom Kitson had legally adopted as his son. The photographs bear the stamp of Galdi with the address of via Sardegna 55 and are dated 1906.
Galdi's scandal of the Naiads fountain in 1901
When the sculptor Mario Rutelli received a commission to renew the 'Naiads fountain' on Piazza della Repubblica he collaborated with Galdi. They met at one of masonic lodges, to which Galdi and Rutelli belonged. Galdi had just returned from Paris, where he visited exhibition of Rodin, and was describing the great art of French sculptor, when Rutelli blurted out: "Vincenzo, I want new models, I'll show you what Rodin has conceived in a dark museum. I'm Sicilian and I will put my own statues in a bath of light so that they will look alive." Galdi procured the models and photographed them, finding shots suitable for his ideas and those of the Mario Rutelli. The sculptor created casts from these nude photographs of pagan nymphs, which immediately created outrage in conservative circles. The question was raised at the session of the City Council, during which some clerics and conservative opponents, offended by the proud nudity of the naiads, asked the mayor for immediate removal of the statues from the fountain. Instead, the city council decided to simply cover the fountain with a fence in order to prevent the public from seeing the statues. One councilor asked to start an investigation against Galdi and Rutelli. Photographs and drawings were seized. All ended up in the press with Avanti defending the sculptures and L'Osservatore Romano judging them as "a gross", criticizing them sharply from an artistic and moral point of view. The situation was resolved spontaneously one night when a group of students destroyed the fence, thereby reopening the monument to the public. Today it is considered one of the major artistic fountains of Rome and tourist often are photographed in front of the fountain.
In 1902, (at age 31) Galdi married Virginia Guglielmi (12 April 1885 – 24 May 1941), an elementary school teacher. They had three male children together: Ernesto Theodor (b. 1903), Vincenzo (b. 1904), nicknamed Vincenzino, and Michelangelo (b. 1917). Nevertheless, Galdi continued his collaborations with Plüschow that ultimately caused Galdi a lot of problems with the law.
Plüschow scandals
In 1902 Plüschow was charged with "solicitation to prostitution" and "seduction of minors" and had to spend eight months in jail in Rome. After Galdi's first two children were born Plüschow and Galdi traveled across the Mediterranean to Algeria in northern Africa in late 1904 where they lived and worked for three years, (Galdi sent money home to his wife and children in Rome during that time). Another scandal occurred in 1907 in Algeria in northern Africa where Plüschow once again got into trouble when parents of young boys complained to the authorities about the photographer having anal sex with their sons' bottoms that he paid to be his models. Plüschow was imprisoned in Algeria in 1907, Galdi returned to Rome and the two men never saw each other again. After being released from prison three years later, Plüschow left Italy for good in 1910 and returned to Berlin when he remained until he died. There are no extant documents that show the 1907 Algerian trial involved Galdi as well. Galdi was involved in the earlier 1902 Rome scandal, but not for sex with the models, but simply for selling their nude photos. A 1902 letter written by Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson, (January 29, 1858 – July 23, 1942) an American writer, (that used the pseudonym Xavier Mayne) mentions G. – a famous Rome nude photographer being arrested and sentenced for "outraging public morals" due to overly audacious photographs for sale everywhere, even in Rome. The American writer was in Rome at the time of the trial. After studying law, Stevenson had decided to become a writer and a journalist. In 1901 he moved to Europe due to the more friendly atmosphere towards homosexuality, living first in Florence, Italy and later in Lausanne, Switzerland where he died of a heart attack in 1942.
Art trade
Around the time when Guglielmo Plüschow left Rome for Berlin in 1910, Vincenzo Galdi abandoned photography and concentrated on the art trade having had quite enough of Plüschow and his "throw caution to the wind" lifestyle. Galdi opened an art gallery in Rome, in Via del Babuino, he called the "Galleria Galdi". He started the art trade with organizing exhibition and selling futurist works of Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni with help of Anton Giulio Bragaglia and his brothers. Some traditionalist painters protested the lude art in the exhibition and broke the window of Galdi's gallery, even damaging some works. Originally the gallery was located at the same building as the Galdi's studio and then moved to via Sistina,75, where it stayed until early 1920s. It changed locations several until it was moved to via Baburino 180. The gallery remained there until the end of 1950s, when Galdi closed it due to his old age and failing health due to prostate cancer.
Vincenzo Galdi was known to bring regional Italian and international artist to Rome. Galdi's grandson remembers that he was the one who brought to fame contemporary Roman painters Onorato Carlandi and Pio Joris. He was a good friend with American art historian Bernard Berenson. Berenson learned the technic of macrophotography from Galdi as a tool to study art works. Vincenzo Galdi's son, Ernesto, who was suffered from poliomyelitis, lived for a few years with Berenson on his villa in Settignano near Florence, because at that time Florence was the only place in Italy, where the treatment for the illness was available. Despite Galdi's liberal views, he was called to be the part of panel of experts for the protection against art counterfeit by National Fascist Federation of Art Dealers.
Death
Vincenzo Galdi died in Rome on December 20, 1961, in The Zappalà Clinic, where he had been hospitalized with advanced prostate cancer. He was buried on the 23rd of the same month on the cemetery of Verano, near his wife Virginia, who had died in 1941.
(Source: Wikipedia - Edited for clarity, chronology, and errors in historical content.)
Early years
His father Vincenzo Galdi Sr. was one of the descendants of an ancient Italian noble house with title of baron, one of whose ancestors was a Norman knight, who participated in liberation of Salerno from the Saracens. He belonged to a branch, which in the middle of the eighteenth century had settled in Marigliano and inherited the title of Castelan of Ischia and Procida, as well as Lord of Corleone in Sicily. Elder Vincenzo was a banker and owner of a hat factory. Vincenzo Galdi's mother, Rosa D'Amore, was the sister of the mayor of Marigliano, Italy.
Naples
Vincenzo Galdi was enrolled in the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples. Galdi aspired to be an actor before changing to photography. He played the role of Aniello, in "The Camorristi (Mafia) Family in Vicaria Prison" performed on stage at age 19 in 1890 at the Theater Folly of Naples. From 1887, (age 16) until 1890, (age 19) young Galdi worked in theater as a set designer, instrumentalist and actor with the Eduardo Scarpetta's company and later with Alberto Cozzella and Vincenzo Esposito's company. During his studies the Institute of Fine Arts in Naples, Galdi was especially impressed with optics and photographic technique, even building a wooden camera with a telescopic lens by himself. As a student he worked at the studio of Giorgio Sommer at his photographic studio on Via Monte di Dio which inspired him to change his studies from theater to photography. Galdi started to study with German homosexual photographer Wilhelm "Guglielmo" Plüschow, who had moved to Naples and set up a studio in Naples in the early part of 1887. Sixteen-year-old Galdi was strikingly good-looking and modeled in the nude for Plüschow at that time. (Galdi begin having sex with the photographer and introduced him to other Italian male youths that were open to engaging in sex with other males. Young 19th Century males in Italy were rarely monogamous, and largely homosexual until they married around age thirty, and fathered children.) The economic default of the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the decline of Naples art scene led then 19-year-old Galdi to leave Naples and move to Rome with Guglielmo Plüschow.
Rome
When he arrived in Rome in 1890, Galdi lived with his older sister Eutilia until he bought a penthouse with terrace on Via Sardegna 55 in the new Ludovisi district, still suburban at that time. Once he acquired the penthouse Guglielmo Plüschow later joined him there. Galdi later opened a studio on Via Campania 45, not far from the apartment. Galdi specialized in feminine male and masculine male nude art, becoming soon the most well-known author of the time in that genre in third place after Plüschow and Plüschow' s cousin Wilhelm von Gloeden . Galdi also produced portraits and some of his photographs were sold as postcards. The Via Campania studio also served as an art gallery.
When Plüschow arrived in Rome the two continued their collaboration they started in Naples. This fact is documented by a letter by Theodore F. Dwight, director of the Boston Public Library, (sent in January 1896) in which he described his visit to the studio of the photographers:
"Plüschow was not present in person, but his assistant was, and I was given every pleasure to see his collection, apparently without expecting me to buy it. While we were talking, the beautiful Italian, with black hair and mustache, a rather vigorous build and wide shoulders, over the age of 24, who seemed anxious to be to be noticed and acted as a master of the place. I asked and learned that it was Vincenzo Galdi, the model of many of Plüschow' s photos. He posed for those laying on the wall, with a band around his head. He also posed along with Edoardo, (a most beautiful 17-year-old) in an infinite number of other photos. I told him that I knew him from the tip of his feet to the top of his head and he immediately became very talkative, showing me all his preferred poses. We have established such friendly relationships as I have now the privilege of taking pictures in the studio of Plüschow and pictures of the Plüschow models."
The partnership with Plüschow likely lasted until 1902, given that the following year Galdi moved into his own studio to Corso Umberto 333, where he worked with two assistants that were also models and sex partners: Pietro Magnotti and Enrico Simoncini that also appeared in both Plüschow and Von Gloden photographs. Among the photographs attributed explicitly to Galdi are a series of shots commissioned by English painter Robert Hawthorn Kitson, depicting Carlo Kitson, his barely pubescent young lover from Taormina, whom Kitson had legally adopted as his son. The photographs bear the stamp of Galdi with the address of via Sardegna 55 and are dated 1906.
Galdi's scandal of the Naiads fountain in 1901
When the sculptor Mario Rutelli received a commission to renew the 'Naiads fountain' on Piazza della Repubblica he collaborated with Galdi. They met at one of masonic lodges, to which Galdi and Rutelli belonged. Galdi had just returned from Paris, where he visited exhibition of Rodin, and was describing the great art of French sculptor, when Rutelli blurted out: "Vincenzo, I want new models, I'll show you what Rodin has conceived in a dark museum. I'm Sicilian and I will put my own statues in a bath of light so that they will look alive." Galdi procured the models and photographed them, finding shots suitable for his ideas and those of the Mario Rutelli. The sculptor created casts from these nude photographs of pagan nymphs, which immediately created outrage in conservative circles. The question was raised at the session of the City Council, during which some clerics and conservative opponents, offended by the proud nudity of the naiads, asked the mayor for immediate removal of the statues from the fountain. Instead, the city council decided to simply cover the fountain with a fence in order to prevent the public from seeing the statues. One councilor asked to start an investigation against Galdi and Rutelli. Photographs and drawings were seized. All ended up in the press with Avanti defending the sculptures and L'Osservatore Romano judging them as "a gross", criticizing them sharply from an artistic and moral point of view. The situation was resolved spontaneously one night when a group of students destroyed the fence, thereby reopening the monument to the public. Today it is considered one of the major artistic fountains of Rome and tourist often are photographed in front of the fountain.
In 1902, (at age 31) Galdi married Virginia Guglielmi (12 April 1885 – 24 May 1941), an elementary school teacher. They had three male children together: Ernesto Theodor (b. 1903), Vincenzo (b. 1904), nicknamed Vincenzino, and Michelangelo (b. 1917). Nevertheless, Galdi continued his collaborations with Plüschow that ultimately caused Galdi a lot of problems with the law.
Plüschow scandals
In 1902 Plüschow was charged with "solicitation to prostitution" and "seduction of minors" and had to spend eight months in jail in Rome. After Galdi's first two children were born Plüschow and Galdi traveled across the Mediterranean to Algeria in northern Africa in late 1904 where they lived and worked for three years, (Galdi sent money home to his wife and children in Rome during that time). Another scandal occurred in 1907 in Algeria in northern Africa where Plüschow once again got into trouble when parents of young boys complained to the authorities about the photographer having anal sex with their sons' bottoms that he paid to be his models. Plüschow was imprisoned in Algeria in 1907, Galdi returned to Rome and the two men never saw each other again. After being released from prison three years later, Plüschow left Italy for good in 1910 and returned to Berlin when he remained until he died. There are no extant documents that show the 1907 Algerian trial involved Galdi as well. Galdi was involved in the earlier 1902 Rome scandal, but not for sex with the models, but simply for selling their nude photos. A 1902 letter written by Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson, (January 29, 1858 – July 23, 1942) an American writer, (that used the pseudonym Xavier Mayne) mentions G. – a famous Rome nude photographer being arrested and sentenced for "outraging public morals" due to overly audacious photographs for sale everywhere, even in Rome. The American writer was in Rome at the time of the trial. After studying law, Stevenson had decided to become a writer and a journalist. In 1901 he moved to Europe due to the more friendly atmosphere towards homosexuality, living first in Florence, Italy and later in Lausanne, Switzerland where he died of a heart attack in 1942.
Art trade
Around the time when Guglielmo Plüschow left Rome for Berlin in 1910, Vincenzo Galdi abandoned photography and concentrated on the art trade having had quite enough of Plüschow and his "throw caution to the wind" lifestyle. Galdi opened an art gallery in Rome, in Via del Babuino, he called the "Galleria Galdi". He started the art trade with organizing exhibition and selling futurist works of Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni with help of Anton Giulio Bragaglia and his brothers. Some traditionalist painters protested the lude art in the exhibition and broke the window of Galdi's gallery, even damaging some works. Originally the gallery was located at the same building as the Galdi's studio and then moved to via Sistina,75, where it stayed until early 1920s. It changed locations several until it was moved to via Baburino 180. The gallery remained there until the end of 1950s, when Galdi closed it due to his old age and failing health due to prostate cancer.
Vincenzo Galdi was known to bring regional Italian and international artist to Rome. Galdi's grandson remembers that he was the one who brought to fame contemporary Roman painters Onorato Carlandi and Pio Joris. He was a good friend with American art historian Bernard Berenson. Berenson learned the technic of macrophotography from Galdi as a tool to study art works. Vincenzo Galdi's son, Ernesto, who was suffered from poliomyelitis, lived for a few years with Berenson on his villa in Settignano near Florence, because at that time Florence was the only place in Italy, where the treatment for the illness was available. Despite Galdi's liberal views, he was called to be the part of panel of experts for the protection against art counterfeit by National Fascist Federation of Art Dealers.
Death
Vincenzo Galdi died in Rome on December 20, 1961, in The Zappalà Clinic, where he had been hospitalized with advanced prostate cancer. He was buried on the 23rd of the same month on the cemetery of Verano, near his wife Virginia, who had died in 1941.
(Source: Wikipedia - Edited for clarity, chronology, and errors in historical content.)
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