Vincenzo Marinelli was an Italian painter, known best for his Orientalist canvases based on his travels in Greece, Crete, Egypt, and Sudan.

Marinelli was born in San Martino d'Agri near Potenza. His father was a surgeon and a dedicated Jacobin. At the age of 17, he moved to Naples to complete his literary and scientific studies. By the age of 22, he dedicated himself to painting, and studied under Costanzo Angelini at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts of Naples. Obtaining a scholarship from the Province of Basilicata, from 1842 to 1848, he studied in Rome at the Academy under Tommaso Minardi.

Returning to Naples after the restoration, he traveled through Greece working for Otto, King of Greece. He visited the Greek isles, and painted for the Cathedral of Rethymno in Crete. He then traveled to Egypt, where he completed works for the Ottoman Khedive, Muhammad Sa'id Pasha, accompanying him on a nine-month trip to Sudan. Back in Naples in 1859, ten years later he was invited to the inauguration of the Suez Canal, he returned to Egypt and traveled up to the first cataract of the Nile.

Again returning to Italy, he won a contest in 1875 to become Professor of design and figure at the Royal Institute of Fine Arts a Naples, and in 1881, upon the resignation of Domenico Morelli, he was named professor of painting of Royal Institute. He taught from 1865 to 1887 at the Royal Educandato Femminile Regina Maria Pia. He died in Naples on 18 January 1892.