Michał Elwiro Andriolli

Michał Elwiro Andriolli ( born November 2, 1836 in Vilnius, † August 23 1893 in Naleczów ) was a Polish painter and architect. He is best known for his illustrations of Mickiewicz's epic poem Pan Tadeusz and for its villas in the suburbs of Warsaw.

Andriolli is a descendant of a family of Italian immigrants who settled as a result of the Napoleonic Wars in Poland. Andriolli studied from 1855 in Moscow, painting and sculpture. He graduated in 1858 in Petersburg. After his return to Poland, he received a scholarship that in 1861 a trip to Rome allowed him to where he continued his studies at the Accademia San Luca. Because of his participation in the January Uprising, he had to flee from Poland and lived first in London and then in Paris. In 1866, he returned as an emissary of Polish emigrants back to the tsarist ruled Poland. However, he was arrested and sentenced to hard labor. It was not until 1871 he was pardoned, after which he returned to Warsaw, where he worked as an illustrator for various newspapers. He was to illustrate one of the most famous Polish illustrators of his time and received several orders, the great works of Polish literature. Best known are his illustrations for Pan Tadeusz and Konrad Wallenrod that originated 1879-1882. Between 1883 and 1886 the Andriolli in Paris, where he illustrated French editions of the works of Shakespeare and James Fenimore Cooper.

He spent his last years in a small villa near Anielin on Świder River near Warsaw. Apart from his own villa, he also received orders for the design of other villas and thereby developed a distinctive style of architecture is called Świdermajer and several Warsaw suburbs coined. Andriolli died on August 24, 1893 -