On the Twenty-Sixth Anniversary of Fr. Richard Cannuli’s Ordainment into Priesthood,
Augustinian of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova, Villanova, PA
(30 October, 1999 – 30 October, 2025)
A Slice of My Life and Work with Fr. Richard
by Prof. Tina Waldeier Bizzarro, Friend and Colleague
While it is a pleasure and a comfort to chronicle some small pieces of Fr. Richard Cannuli’s long and rich life, it is also a challenge. For what a great man he was—artist, professor, hard worker, colleague, author, leader, friend to many, pious man of the cloth! His life was manifold and rich. Here are just a few highlights. . . .
This year on October 30, Fr. Richard would have celebrated his twenty-sixth anniversary as an ordained priest in the Order of Saint Augustine. His long life was punctuated by many great achievements. A graduate of Villanova University (BFA,1973) and Pratt Institute (MFA,1978), Fr. Richard took many of his undergraduate courses at Rosemont College. He served on the faculty of Villanova University for 41 years, as professor, Chair of Studio Art, Art History, and Music for 11 years, and for 5 years as Chair of Department of Theatre, Studio Art, and Music. He also held the position of Director of Villanova University Art Gallery and Curator of the University Art Collection. He was a servant-leader. But his most beloved métier was the creation of works of art—sacred icons, multi-media contemporary altarpieces, watercolors, oil paintings, prints, liturgical vestments—which he displayed across the globe—in Italy, Spain, China, Russia, Belorussia, Greece, and throughout the United States — to name a few venues. His overwhelming desire to learn and communicate with others forged him into a world traveler!
Fr. Richard exhibited his artwork all over the world throughout his long artistic career. One of his most cherished exhibitions was of his opus sacrum entitled, “Ever Ancient, Ever New: Sacred Treasures, “ in Rome’s Augustinian Art Gallery of Sacred and Contemporary Art at the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in March of 2012. A resounding success, this gala event was attended by faculty from Villanova University and Rosemont College, as well as friends and colleagues from across the globe. Some of the artworks exhibited were his large multi-media contemporary altarpieces inspired by his collaboration with Prof. Bizzarro in Sicily, on their many journeys finding, photographing, and commemorating the many Sicilian roadside shrines they studied. These were saints’ images, created in mixed media, protected in glass-sheltered and illuminated niches, standing guard in their shallow street-side homes, designed to guard and protect neighborhoods and communities. The catalogue of his exhibited works was translated into 3 languages. His icons were also a staple of the show.
In 1985, he started formal training as an iconographer under a master iconographer. He received commissions for his icons from religious and parish communities as well as private individuals all over the world. One of his icons was accepted into the permanent collection of the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine’s in the Sinai, Egypt in 2008. Another was gifted to Pope Francis. He gifted an icon of Cornelia Connelly, Foundress of the Order of Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, to the Sisters at Rosemont College, after Cornelia was proclaimed “Venerable,” by Pope John Paul II, in the process of her canonization.
Fr. Richard and Prof. Tina developed many courses together. One of the most unusual and pioneering was an interdisciplinary course entitled, “Icon: Meaning and Making,” at Villanova University for over 20 years, in which the students from Villanova University and Rosemont College studied the icon’s history and wrote icons. This course was the seed element of a summer program they developed and ran in Messina, “Mediterranean Studies in Messina, Sicily, “ for 7 years between 2000-2007—the first and only one of its kind in Sicily. Within this six-week-long summer study program, Fr. Richard and Prof. Bizzarro toured the island of Sicily with the students, visiting all of the cardinal Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque monuments of Sicily.
As a primer to accompany his iconography, he authored, “Approaching the Divine” (2014). It provides artists with a systematic layout of the steps in the writing of a traditional Byzanto-Russian icon. It is a “Jacob’s Ladder” for those seeking a visual understanding of the crafting of an icon.
He strove to communicate his sense of the divine with everyone he met. In his words, as written in the catalogue of his Rome show, and echoing its Augustinian title, “Ever Ancient, Ever New”:
“It is the interplay between human experience and spiritual practice, exemplified in roadside shrine veneration in neighborhoods, at byways, and in homes, that creates the link between the ancient and the new, the pre-Christian and the Christian, human history and personal history, and ultimately, the yearnings of human hearts for comfort, safety, and assistance in the travails of this life. This hope is the seed of my exhibition. . . . This has truly been a labor of love.”
His Sicilian and southern Italian heritage, of which he was so proud, was the ballast that anchored and stabilized this Renaissance man throughout his entire life and oeuvre. His roots in the culture of the Mediterranean–its tradition of art, storytelling, the anchor of the family, human striving—sustained and fed his rich life and work. May he rest in eternal peace, as he continues to live in the memories and prayers of all our human hearts.
I leave all of you readers with some visual memories of Fr. Richard, my friend, colleague, and soulmate.
Click each photo to enlarge and learn more.
