Ferruccio Vitale


Ferruccio Vitale was a landscape architect. Born in Italy, he became a United States citizen in 1921. The historian Terry R. Schnadelbach considered him to be "America's forgotten landscape architect."

Life

Vitale was born in Florence, Italy on February 5, 1875, the son of Lazzaro Vitale and his wife, the Countess Giuseppina Barbaro Vitale. The father was an engineer, and in 1893, the son graduated from the Royal military school in Modena with a degree in engineering. After graduating, he enlisted as an officer in the Italian army. Vitale moved to Washington, DC, in 1898 in his role of military attache to the Italian embassy. Resigning from this position, he later studied to become a landscape designer in Florence, Turin and Paris. In 1902, he moved from Genoa to New York, where he joined the firm of Parsons & Pentecost as a landscape architect. In 1908, he formed a partnership with Alfred Geiffert, and in 1911, he acquired his first major commission: the Red Maples estate in Southampton, New York.
Vitale was a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Architectural League of New York, and the Municipal Art Society. He served on the Fine Arts Commission of New York City, the American Academy in Rome, and the Foundation for Architecture and Landscape Architecture. He was an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, and belonged to various New York social clubs.
In 1920, the Architectural League of New York awarded Vitale, Brinckerhoff and Geiffert its first gold medal for landscape architecture.
Ferruccio Vitale died of pneumonia in 1933.

Works