Antonio Sciortino (Ħaż-Żebbuġ; 25 January 1879 – 10 August 1947) was a Maltese artist, considered Malta’s foremost sculptor of the twentieth century. His career unfolded almost entirely in Rome, where he resided from 1900 till 1936. Despite his stable residence in Rome, Sciortino maintained strong connections with Malta, where he was commissioned several public monuments, and where its bronzes where later acquired by the Fine Arts Museum. Sciortino's work reflects several artistic movements, including Realism and Futurism, as well as the influence of Auguste Rodin. He studied and worked in Rome. He developed an original style which drew the admiration of many and brought him commissions in Russia, Brazil and the United States. Sciortino was a director of the British Academy of Arts in Rome (1911–1936), and from 1937 until his death he was a curator in the Malta Museum of Fine Arts. Biography From childhood Sciortino showed a tendency towards sculpture, and his aunt Vittorina Sciortino encouraged him to follow this passion. Sciortino enrolled at the Valletta School of Arts, where he studed drawing under the established painter Lazzaro Pisani and modeling and sculpture under Vincenzo Cardona. It was Pisani who encouraged Sciortino to enroll in the School of Art in Valletta where he studied for two years. The Strickland family helped Sciortino to obtain a government scholarship (via the Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) for a course in Rome, where at 22 he went on to continue his studies in art. In Rome, Sciortino studied in the Istituto Reale di Belle Arti where for two years he studied civil engineering and monumental architecture. He also attended the evening classes at the British Academy and at the Scuola Serale Preparatoria alle Arti Ornamentali at the Museo Artistico Tecnologico. After earning a diploma with distinction in 1902, he opened an art studio in via Margutta 33 in the heart of the Roman artistic tradition. Here Sciortino decided to free himself from imitative tradition and develop a personal style. Il filosofo (1902) is a work of artistic study with which Sciortino established a reputation as an original artist and which drew the attention of many art critics. This sculpture, along with another known as were shown in an exhibition with the name . With the statue Studio di Donna (1904) Sciortino moved away from the usual representation of the female figure by contemporary French sculptors, towrds an adaptation inspired