Giuseppe Lorenzo Gatteri was born in Trieste on 18 September 1829. His father, also named Giuseppe Gatteri, was a well-known oil and fresco painter who had moved in 1824 to Trieste from Rivolto, near Codroipo in Friuli. In 1840 his father took Giuseppe Lorenzo with him to Venice, there the son became a pupil of other painters, supported by a scholarship from the municipality of Trieste. Gatteri was described as a child prodigy; by the age of 11 he impressed members of the Minerva Society in Venice with his ability to improvise drawings of episodes from antiquity.^{[1] [Notes 1]}

Gatteri's teachers encouraged him to follow the Romantic style of painting while respecting the Venetian school's tradition of warm color. He exhibited two pen drawings in the Trieste Society of Fine Arts in 1841, and three more the next year. In 1842 his father took Giuseppe Lorenzo to Milan, where again he was shown off at gatherings of the elite as a child prodigy. He greatly impressed the nobility by the speed and quality of his work and his sense for composition. In 1843 his father took him to Turin. He was received by King Charles Albert of Sardinia, who commissioned a series of drawings. The Venice Academy of Fine Arts awarded him prizes in 1845, 1847 and 1851.^[1]

Gatteri illustrated several literary and historical books. After his return to Trieste in 1857 he illustrated a biography of the sailor C. Costantini, a history of Trieste and a book of poems by Pietro Zorutti in the Friulian language.^[1] He prepared 150 drawings for a History of Venice (1852) by Francesco Zanotto.^[2] The plates were engraved by Antonio Viviani and other Venetian artists.^[3]

He decorated the ceremonial hall of the Gravisi-Barbabianca Palace in Koper (Capodistria).^[4] The fresco on the ceiling depicts Apollo on a chariot.^[5] He decorated several cafes in Trieste. In a magnificent villa on the Via Ginnastica in Trieste he painted the ceiling of one of the rooms with a fresco 5 metres (16 ft) square depicting a youthful Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and the Empress Elizabeth on horseback surrounded by heraldic symbols and lesser personages.^[6]

Gatteri was appointed curator of the Revoltella Museum in Trieste from 1873 to 1876. He was co-founder and the first chairman of an art association in 1884. ^[1]

Gatteri paints historic themes in the style of Romanticism. The Revoltella Museum in Trieste contains many of his masterworks, including: The Feast of Mary, Arrival of the Queen of Cyprus in Venice (1864), Entertainment given by Cardinal Riario to the Duchess of Ferrara (1872), Cesare Borgia leaving the Vatican (1877) and Minerva awarded the Arts and the Virtues (1884), thought to be his last work.^[1] His book illustrations were also important, including those for Dante's Divine Comedy, Francesco Zanotto's Venetian History (1852) and Vincenzo Scussa's Chronological History of Trieste (1863).^[7]

Gatteri's works, whether in oils or on paper, were always dramatic compositions, decorated with rich period costumes, brightly colored or bejeweled or shining armor. He has been criticized for taking excessive care to depict clean and bright surfaces, to render excessive detail, and thus to lose life and spontaneity. Another critic has called him a scholar of costume and of theatrical decoration of dead ages, who failed to understand what his paintings depicted.^[1]

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  Transport of the fleet over the mountains to Lake Garda (1852)
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  Joust in the Piazza St. Marco celebrating the recovery of Candia (1852)
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  The tumult of the Ciompi
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  Generosity of the House of Savoy
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  Sketch for Episode of the House of Savoy
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  Episode of the House of Savoy