Notes

Luigi Mayer, born in 1755, was an Italian-German artist recognised as one of the earliest and most significant European painters of the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century. He was described as ‘Roman by birth,’ but details about his early life remain scarce. It is believed that his family may have originated from Switzerland before eventually settling in Rome. Mayer is thought to have studied at the Accademia di San Luca and served as an assistant to the etcher and architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi. In the early 1770s, he likely left Rome for Naples and Sicily, where he reportedly worked for the King of Naples. By 1778, he was in the employ of Prince Biscari, a Sicilian collector and antiquarian based in Catania.