CA’ DEL PITUR: means house of the painter. Gian Battista Benzi (1861-1943), known as “the painter”, was one of the most famous owner of our house.
He was born in Cicogna in 1861. He studied in Brera Accademy from 1875 till 1880.
After the studies, he went back to Cicogna and got married with Caterina Pirovini of Cossogno in 1887.
He loved paint old houses, glimpses of mountain life, and also sacred art.
One of his paint of the Beata Vergine di Caravaggio was in the Inoca oratory of Cossogno.
He frescoed a lot of chapels in Val Pogallo and in Val Grande.
His paintings got lost during the bombing of his house in Cicogna, throughout the second world war. It happended the 12th of June, 1944.
He was also a great hunter and fisher. Some of his paint was about this passions.
There is one of his paint in Pallanza, inside the Landscape Museum, representing a view of Pallanza.
He died in Cicogna in 1943.
