Born in Bergamo in 1932, he received a comprehensive artistic and philosophical education in his youth, which began with early experiences in his father’s cabinet-making workshop and matured through in-depth studies and experiments. Today, he is one of the great protagonists of contemporary art and is considered the foremost exponent of realist figurative painting.

His technical and historical research, conducted with scientific rigor, enabled him to re-elaborate and rediscover the use of the varnished and glazed egg tempera technique (forgotten for centuries) and to invent a new method for pastel and encaustic. These accomplishments have placed him at the forefront of battles for the conservation of ancient heritage and in interventions related to the diagnosis and critique of restoration, as evidenced by his opposition to the restoration of Leonardo’s “The Last Supper,” an effort that included writing an essay on the subject.

Since approximately the late 1950s, Donizetti has authored several essays on artistic subjects and has recently made available online some lessons in various languages and several videos dubbed in English. He has also delved into philosophy, authoring a book, “Why Figurative – Arguments on Aesthetics” (1992), in which he proposes an alternative to the foundation of Kantian aesthetic judgment, which he identifies as a doctrinal error and the starting point of modern informalist art.

The hundreds of anatomical drawings he executed from life have allowed him to develop a scientific knowledge of the human body’s structure, resulting in absolute plastic rigor in his works. This rigor was highlighted in a documentary dedicated to him by CNN International in New York, where Elsa Klensch described his art as “of a quality superior to time,” stating that this “timeless quality” has made him famous worldwide.

This fame is further validated by the fact that Donizetti has painted portraits of numerous famous figures, including Marta Abba, Jean Louis Barrault, Valentina Cortese, Rossella Falk, Giorgio Albertazzi, Vittorio Gassman, Marcel Marceau, Rudolf Nureyev, and Gianandrea Gavazzeni (at the Teatro alla Scala Museum in Milan).

Some portraits, such as those of Lady Diana Spencer (1981), Indira Gandhi (1984), Pope John Paul II (1985), and Deng Xiaoping (1997), have been featured on the cover of “Time” magazine.

In 1983, he was honored with a retrospective exhibition of paintings and drawings in the halls of the Ambrosiana Gallery in Milan. Some of his frescoes and an altarpiece are located in the historic Abbey of Pontida. A dramatically powerful crucifixion can be found in the Treasury Museum of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Donizetti also has a passion for music and has frequently experimented in the field of design. He recently opened an online art academy based in Aquileia.