Menotti Vittorio Amedeo Bianchi, aka Friar Menotti, was born in Bari on 24th September 1863, to Tommaso and Angela de’ Liguori.

It is believed that it was his father who taught him the art of drawing, which he practiced by making caricatures and satirical drawings that drew inspiration from the events, characters, rumors and gossip of his city. He published his first illustrations in Bari’s humorous weekly Fra Melitone, where – starting in 1888 – he adopted the pseudonym “Frate Menotti,” with a strongly anticlerical flavor. Next he collaborated with Il Figaro(1900-1902) and from 1902 joined the editorial staff of Don Ferrante until 1907. Of particular note was also his collaboration with the Bari daily L’Oggi.

Meanwhile, as early as 1885 he had found employment with the Bitontina Bank, where he worked until 1892, when he was hired by the Bari Chamber of Commerce.

He continued his activity as a draftsman in parallel, especially in his downtime, often spent in the central cafes of Bari, favorite places where he loved to sit to portray his fellow citizens in biting caricatures and biting depictions, which not infrequently turned out to be harsh criticisms of the society of his time.

Other brief collaborations included those with the Piccolo giornale d’Italia and the Gazzetta di Puglia, from which he was soon ousted, unable to conceal his contempt for the fascist conformism that was beginning to spread even among the Bari bourgeoisie.

In the last years of his life, he thinned out his publications; however, shortly before his death, he expressed his wish that his illustrations would not be lost and that his memory would be preserved through those very drawings.

His request was granted by a group of friends, which included the publisher Giovanni Laterza, the archaeologist Michele Gervasio, the deputy director of the then Consorziale Library, Francesco Colavecchio, and his friend and poet Armando Perotti. The latter, after acquiring most of his works, created the Menotti Bianchi fund, a collection including more than 800 watercolor plates and drawings, and made a gift of it to the “Sagarriga Visconti Volpe” National Library in Bari, where it is still preserved today, along with about 350 books that belonged to him.

Frate Menotti died in Bari on 11th September 1924.

You can look up the birth certificate on the Ancestors Portal: Archivio di Stato di Bari, Stato civile italiano, Bari, 1863

The original is kept at the State Archives of Bari.