Marco Benefial (1684–1764)

• Was an Italian, proto-Neoclassical painter, mainly active in Rome.
• Marco Benefial was born in Rome in 1684.
• When at the age of 19 years, one of his paintings, an altarpiece with Apotheosis of San Filippo Neri, was rejected for exhibition at the yearly Pantheon show in 1703, Benefial became incensed and displayed it in a pharmacist's window, to much commotion.

• In 1720, he protested the Accademia di San Luca's decree that only members or those meeting the approval of the painter's guild could teach drawing.

• His appeal to the councils of Pope Clement XI succeeded in having the ruling revoked.

• After Benefial was finally elected into the Accademia di San Luca at the age of 57, he soon denounced its members' mediocrity and ignorance; and was expelled years later in 1755.

• In 1716, he had painted a San Saturnino for the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (Rome).

• His 1718 papal commission for a Jonah, painted for Basilica of St. John Lateran, was rewarded also by the papacy with the title of Cavaliere.

• He often collaborated in paintings with Filippo Evangelista.

• Among his pupils were Anton Mengs, Antonio Liozzi, Giovanni Battista Ponfredi, Gioacchino Martorana, Mariano Rossi, and the English portrait painter, John Parker.

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