The painter Vikentios Lantsas (Vincenzo Lanza) was born in Venice in 1822 and passed away in Athens in 1902.
He studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, where he also taught perspective until 1848. He was then forced to abandon his homeland due to his participation in the revolution against the Austrians. He fled to Greece and, with the support of the royal couple, undertook major mural cycles (Amalia Villa, Ceremony Hall of the University of Athens, Saint Nikodemos).
From 1863 (the year he was naturalized as a Greek citizen) until 1900, he was a professor of Perspective and Architectural Design at the School of Fine Arts, and taught painting at the Hellenic Military Academy (Evelpidon) and the NCO Military School. Utilizing primarily the watercolor technique, he dedicated himself to so-called historical or archaeological landscape painting. He depicted monuments and landscapes with the realism of direct experience rather than through the prism of Romanticism, as was common among the Philhellene traveler painters of the era.
He participated in the Olympia Exhibitions (1859, 1870, 1888), Parnassos exhibitions (1885 and after 1900), and the Exposition Internationale Universelle (Paris 1867). He also took part in exhibitions as a member of the judging committee (Polytechnic Exhibition 1855, Kontostavleios Competition 1856, etc.).