After spending his childhood in Tuscany, Orsino Bongi moved to Milan to attend the Scuola superiore di architettura at the Regio Istituto tecnico superiore (today’s Politecnico di Milano). He taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera and worked on numerous projects for several of the pavilions at the International Exposition of Milan in 1906, including the massive French Pavilion. His team won a prize for the general project of the Padiglione Agraria, built in the Art Nouveau style. Bongi was also one of the main interpreters of the style known as Medievalismo lombardo (see his Galleria Warowland in Salsomaggiore Terme, which was commissioned to him by Count Ladislao Tyszkiewicz).

Ferdinando Martini was a critic and Professor of Literature, dramatist, writer and Italian politician. Born into a noble family settled next to Florence (his father was Secretary General of Finances in the Gran Duchy of Tuscany), Martini began his studies with little effort (he never attended University), although he earl developed a strong interest towards classical studies and theatre. After the death of both his parents and family’s economic collapse, he started working as Professor in several institutes in Tuscany, as writer (i.e. “La strada piu’ corta” and “Chi s ail gioco non l’insegni” during the 60s; “I nuovi ricchi”, 1873) and journalist (he collaborated to the local newspapers “La Nazione” and “Fanfulla”). Moved to Rome in 1871, he increased his participation into the national literary discussion (he met Carducci, Verga, etc.), kept collaborating with literary journals and founded the literary supplement “Il Fanfulla della Domenica” and in 1881 the “Giornale per i bambini” (where Collodi published his serialized novel “Pinocchio”). Successively, Martini developed his political ideas and values: specializing in national pedagogy and social issues, he became a close allied of the left group of Zanardelli, and later, of the Social Party of Mussolini. He started his long and active political career and served in important administrative and political posts as in Italy as abroad (he governed the Italian Colony of Eritrea from 1891-1907; he worked also as Italian Ambassador in Argentina in 1910).