Life and career

The high school

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The historic Liceo Classico of Livorno was founded in 1861 and has welcomed students who have become famous figures, for example the man of letters Giuseppe Chiarini, the poet Giovanni Pascoli and the president of Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
The high school was briefly attended by Amedeo Modigliani. His education until then had been cared for by his mother, at home, then in 1897 Dedo enrolled in the Liceo Classico Niccolini-Guerrazzi.
He attended only the ginnasio, the first years of this kind of high school, under the guidance of professor Rodolfo Mondolfi, who was a close friend of his mother Eugenia. In her diary seems clear that professor Mondolfi often frequented Modigliani’s house, helping with the homework and acting as a consultant to Eugenia. Moreover professor Mondolfi’s son, Umberto, was a close friend of Amedeo during his childhood.

His stay at Liceo Classico was short: in 1889 typhus forced him to bed sick for several weeks. Once recovered he started to attend the school of the painter Guglielmo Micheli and, some times later, he left the school to follow his desire to become an artist.