Scipione was the pseudonym of Gino Bonichi (Macerata, February 25, 1904 – Arco, November 9, 1933), a leading figure in the Roman School. A painter, draftsman, and poet, he developed an intense body of work over a short career. In his paintings, Rome becomes a setting charged with tension, memory, and imagination.

Early Training and Mario Mafai

In 1924, he met Mario Mafai, who encouraged him to attend life drawing classes at Rome’s Academy of Fine Arts. They studied together and shared a deep interest in the painting of earlier centuries.

He adopted the name Scipione in the late 1920s. In January 1929, he showed Contemplazione at the Convegno di Roma, identified by the Musei di Villa Torlonia chronology as his first documented public exhibition.

Scipione and the Via Cavour School

With Mafai and Antonietta Raphaël, he formed the core of the Via Cavour School, a name introduced by Roberto Longhi in 1929. Friendship, artistic exchange, and a shared rejection of academic conventions brought them together.

Raphaël’s international background broadened their dialogue. Each artist nevertheless retained an individual language. Scipione’s work stands out for its expressive distortion and visionary intensity.

Rome, Color, and Major Paintings

Deep reds, browns, and sudden flashes of light transform squares, churches, and human figures. His interest in El Greco and Roman Baroque art informs a vision in which sensuality, spirituality, and unease coexist.

Piazza Navona and Il cardinal decano (The Cardinal Dean), both from 1930, are central works. In Il risveglio della bionda sirena (The Awakening of the Blonde Mermaid), painted in 1929, dream imagery takes a sensual, fantastic form. A dream recounted by Raphaël inspired the painting.

Drawing, Poetry, and Exhibitions

Drawing and writing remained essential to his practice. He contributed to L’Italia Letteraria and to Fronte, the magazine edited by Marino Mazzacurati in 1931. His engagement with poetry is also reflected in his portrait of Giuseppe Ungaretti.

In 1930, he exhibited at the Venice Biennale and alongside Mafai at the Galleria di Roma. He took part in the first Rome Quadriennale in 1931.

His Final Years and Artistic Legacy

Tuberculosis, which had developed during his youth, increasingly restricted his work and required repeated stays in sanatoriums. He died at a sanatorium in Arco, Trentino, at twenty-nine. The Second Quadriennale honored him with a memorial display in 1935.

His work remains central to understanding the visionary strand of Roman painting between the world wars.

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