In George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, an autobiographical book about poverty published in 1933, the author describes his encounter with a screever named Bozo. Screevers were less closely associated with religious subject matter, but like the madonnari, they made a living with their ephemeral art. The English counterparts to madonnari, known as “screevers,” emerged in Victorian London and remained a fixture of the city up until World War II.

The Italian tradition continued for centuries, and soon street art began popping up in countries like England and Germany as well. Hospodar, explains, madonnari realized they could maximize their earnings by working as traveling artists, moving between towns according to religious festival schedules. They were dubbed Madonnari, painters of the Madonna.Īs the 2011 book Asphalt Renaissance, written by the street artist Kurt Wenner along with B.

Ultimately the more artistic beggars began copying portraits of the Madonna, in particular those by the popular early 16th-century liturgical artist Raphael. They were rewarded for their efforts with coins thrown down by pilgrims visiting the cathedrals. Some of them decided to create art, and charcoal from braziers became their first drawing implement. In 16th-century Italy various beggars, primarily amputees, began looking for an advantage over the other beggars who proliferated in the plazas and market areas around cathedrals, especially on feast days.

Chalk drawings