The child’s character is so unformed that I cannot say what I think of it. He behaves like a spoiled child, but he does not lack intelligence. We shall have to wait and see what is inside this chrysalis. Perhaps an artist?
- From Modigliani’s mother’s diary

Modigliani was born in Livorno, Italy, a cosmopolitan, international port on the Mediterranean Sea. While lacking in artistic role models, his distinguished family was made up of learned teachers, business people and politicians. His mother’s side claimed the philosopher Baruch Spinoza as an ancestor, and Amedeo’s brother Giuseppe Emmanuele became a leader of Italy’s Socialist party and, by consequence, the archrival and nemesis of Mussolini.

Modigliani received extensive artistic training and was extremely well read in literature and philosophy. His poor health, including what may have been incipient tuberculosis, necessitated extended visits to the south of Italy, including stays in Rome, Naples, Amalfi and Capri. During these trips Modigliani visited museums and cathedrals avidly, developing a rich understanding of classical Italian art.

It was also during these trips that his artistic vision began to develop. At the age of 16, he wrote to his friend Oscar Ghiglia, “I am also trying to formulate, with the greatest lucidity, the truths of art and life I have discovered scattered among the beauties of Rome. As their inner meaning becomes clear to me, I will seek to reveal and to rearrange their composition, in order to create out of it my truth of life, beauty and art.”