Ferdinando Bologna, a pupil of Pietro Toesca and Roberto Longhi, earned his degree in Rome and taught Medieval and Modern Art History at various Italian universities. He was on the first editorial board of the magazine Paragone and director of the Istituto di Storia dell’Arte in Naples. Prominent among his publications are La pittura italiana delle origini (1962), Il soffitto della Sala Magna allo Steri di Palermo e la cultura feudale siciliana nell’autunno del Medioevo (1975) and I metodi di studio dell’arte italiana e il problema metodologico oggi (1979). He was also editor-in-chief of the collection Storia dell’arte italiana (1980–88). He has devoted major studies to Neapolitan and southern painting such as  Francesco Solimena (1958), Gaspare Traversi nell’Illuminismo europeo (1980), Battistello Caracciolo e il primo naturalismo a Napoli (1991) and L’incredulità del Caravaggio e l’esperienza delle ‘cose naturali’ (1992).