Federico Moja

Federico Moja painted rooms and streets more than people. Born in Milan in 1802 into a family of artists, he entered the Brera Academy at 16 and studied under Giovanni Migliara, a master of precise architectural views. Moja took up the same speciality: perspective scenes of city squares, church interiors and cloisters, set down with an almost technical exactness.

Trips to France in the early 1830s gave him new subjects, including a Paris church he would go on repainting for years. In 1841 he moved to Venice, and four years later the Academy there made him professor of perspective. From then on he turned out views of Venice and the Veneto, the sharp architectural vedute that collectors sent to the Milan and Turin exhibitions season after season.