Niccolo d'Ardia Caracciolo

Niccolo d'Ardia Caracciolo (1941 – 1989), known as Niccolo Caracciolo, was an Irish painter.

Born in Dublin, he was the only son of Ferdinando Caracciolo, Prince of Cursi, a member of an old Italian family originally from Naples.[1] His mother was Mary Purcell-Fitzgerald[2] of the Island, near Waterford, now Waterford Castle, where he was reared.[3]

After being educated at The Oratory School in Woodcote, England,[4] he went to Florence at the age of nineteen to study art at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze. He continued to keep a house in Tuscany for the rest of his life, travelling back and forth to Ireland.

In 1964 Caracciolo was one of the painters chosen to paint a replica of the Sistine Chapel for the scenery of the 1965 film The Agony and the Ecstasy, on the life of Michelangelo.[5]

From 1975 to 1978 he lived at Rosemount House, near Moate, County Westmeath, where he painted many scenes of the surrounding countryside and exhibited at the Lad Lane Gallery in Dublin in 1978. He also exhibited at the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York.

In 1983 he became an associate Member of the Royal Hibernian Academy and in 1984 a full member of the Royal Hibernian Academy.[6]

D'Ardia Caracciolo died near Siena, Italy in a road accident in 1989. He is was buried at Bunclody, County Wexford.[7]

The Don Niccolo d'Ardia Caracciolo RHA Medal & Award is awarded in his memory.