Carlo Augusto Fontana was born in Rome, Italy, on September 13, 1897. The second of three children of Giovanni Fontana and Corona Fattori, he grew in a middle class family with a pedigree related to the recent independence of Italy. Giovanni Fontana had fought under Giuseppe Garibaldi, the hero of Italian “Risorgimento” or resurgence, and had commanded an Italian battalion allied to the French during the unfortunate campaign of the Vosges of 1870.
Corona Fontana was the daughter of Augusto Fattori, one of the patriots who supported the anti-Austrian movement in Mantova, and was arrested in 1853; his death penalty was converted to prison in Bohemia.
Although there were no artistic roots in the family, the young Carlo took some interest in drawing since the years spent at a boarding school in Tivoli, near Rome. Some early documents from the period between 1911 and 1915 show a skilled hand, still searching for a personal style.
Carlo entered law school at the University of Rome. After his father’s death, Corona had married Gerolamo (“Gino”) Arnaldi: the Fontana family adopted then the new name of Fontana-Arnaldi.
- An unruly youth in the Great War
- A playboy during the miraculous years
- Settled and WW2
- After WW2
- The final years