Salvatore Monaco was born in Ispica (Ragusa) on April 23, 1951. He studied in Siracusa, Sicily  (High School for Fine Arts). Since 1970 he attended the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence  (Accademia di Belle Arti), where he attended painting courses held by Primo Conti, Aldo Turchiaro, Bruno Rosai as well as carving courses held by Domenico Viggiano. He graduated in 1974 in Florence, where he lives since  then.
        For this artist the "Sicilianity", the "fact of being Sicilian", has deeply influenced  his work. In fact, the artistic classical atmosphere that you can still breathe in his homeland - which was part of the Hellenistic world in the ancient times ( the so called "Magna Grecia")   - had a extraordinary impact on a  range of  themes which are present in Monaco's paintings such as  the themes related to the Classical Myths of Western Culture.
        He moved to Florence at the beginning of the 1970's  and in so doing he opened a long phase of his artistic  life  in   which on the one hand he widened his own artistic discourse and on the other hand he became more and more attracted by   the traditional oil on canvas technique;   furthermore he has made some of his oils on panel  "precious" with gold, since he used a technique which was  well known in the Medieval and Renaissance Art.
       In 1997 Salvatore Monaco was asked by the Municipality of Florence, Department of Fine Arts, for painting a big-size trompe-l'oeil which was placed in the Florentine historical square called  Piazza della Signoria (November 1997).
       In the decades a variety of Italian galleries have organized Salvatore Monaco's exhibitions; he got several recognitions   and his work was bought by Italian and American private collectors. One-person exhibitions of this artist have been held in Florence (Galleria Teorema 1991, Villa Arrivabene 1992) and Bologna (Galleria Vicolo Quartirolo). A Salvatore Monaco one-person exhibition will be held  in March 2002 (Florence, Galleria Gruppo Donatello).