Giuseppe Moretti - sculptor

Sienese artist who became famous in the United States

Giuseppe Moretti

The sculptor Giuseppe Moretti, who became well known in the United States as a prolific creator of public monuments, was born on this day in 1857 in Siena.

Moretti's favourite medium was marble and he considered his Head of Christ, which he carved from a block of Alabama marble in 1903, to be his greatest work.

The creation which earned him most fame, however, was the 56-foot (17.07m) statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking, which he made for the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri on behalf of the city of Birmingham, Alabama as a symbol of its heritage in the iron and steel industry.

Moretti made the statue in clay in New Jersey before overseeing its casting in iron in Birmingham.  Vulcan, the largest cast iron statue in the world, was relocated to Alabama State Fairgrounds after the St Louis Exposition before being moved again to the top of Red Mountain, the ridge overlooking Birmingham, which it shares with a number of radio and television transmission towers.

Moretti's enormous statue of Vulcan on
Red Mountain, overlooking Birmingham

Although he spent much of his life away from Italy, it was in his homeland that Moretti developed his love for art and sculpture.  The nephew of Vincenzo Cardinal Moretti, a patron of the arts, he began sculpting at the age of nine with Tito Serrochi, who had a studio Siena.

Aware that Florence was the cradle of Italian art, the young Moretti apparently set off on foot one day, following the road sign that pointed towards the Tuscan capital, unaware that it was more than 60km (37 miles) away.  He was taken home by a neighbour.  A few years later, he reached his intended destination by gaining a place at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

Always prepared to move in search of work, Moretti relocated to Carrara to work with marble before accepting an invitation to work in Croatia, where he might have stayed but for a devastating earthquake in Zagreb.  Instead, he moved on to Vienna and then Budapest before taking the bold decision in 1888 to emigrate to the United States.

He set up a studio in New York in partnership with the Austrian-American sculptor Karl Bitter, operating from a town house in Manhattan.  The architect Richard Morris Hunt hired him for commissions for wealthy clients in Newport, Rhode Island, including William K and Alva Vanderbilt.

The house in Manhattan's East Village that
Moretti shared with fellow sculptor Karl Bitter

A keen opera fan and an amateur singer himself, it was around this time that he joined the Liederkranz music club in New York, where he met and became friends with the great tenor, Enrico Caruso.

Work took him next to Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, where he took regular commissions over a 28-year period, beginning with a series of works in the city's Schenley Park.

His popularity in Pittsburgh brought him wide attention and the commission to create Birmingham's Vulcan followed shortly afterwards.

While overseeing the casting, Moretti visited the marble quarries around Sylacauga and discovered that Alabama marble was of outstanding quality, good enough to rival the Carrara marble that was imported to the United States in large quantities each year. He hauled a block of the gleaming white stone back to his studio in Birmingham and carved The Head of Christ, a work that he carried with him to every place that he lived for the rest of his life. It is now on display at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Although he was a brilliant sculptor, Moretti was a poor businessman, in that most of his ventures ended badly and cost him money.

Giuseppe Moretti felt his Head of Christ in Alabama marble
was his finest piece of work

Ultimately, it became clear that the only way he would make money was from the fees he earned from individual commissions.  So he abandoned his ambitions to own marble quarries and focussed again on sculpting.

This explains why he was so prolific. In all, he completed 12 First World War memorials, 19 monumental works, six church sculptures, 24 memorial tablets, 14 cemetery memorials, 27 sculptures in marble, bronze, and aluminum, and 27 bronze statuettes.

There are at least 17 Moretti works in Pittsburgh's east end. Moretti's notable work in Pittsburgh includes two imposing entrances to Highland Park and four bronze Panthers erected on Panther Hollow Bridge.

In 1905, Moretti married Dorothea Long, a member of an aristocratic Boston family, in her hometown of Brookline, Massachusetts. Two years later, he encountered the work of Geneva Mercer, a student, whom he took on as an apprentice and then his assistant.

He decided to travel again and in 1909, with Dorothea and Geneva, left Alabama. During the next 13 years they lived in New York City, Florence, Havana and Pittsburgh.  One of his great achievements during this period was to complete, with Mercer's help, 97 sculptures for the Gran Teatro de la Habana in Cuba.

When he suffered another business failure in 1925, and with his health beginning to fail, Moretti decided to return to Italy, settling in a large villa and studio in Sanremo, where he died in February 1935.

The Torre del Mangia towers over Siena's Piazza del Campo

Travel tip:

Siena is best known for the twice-yearly Palio, the horse race between the city's rival contrade (parishes) that takes place in the city's expansive Piazza del Campo, but there are many other good reasons to visit.  Among them, dominating the piazza, is the 800-year old castellated Palazzo Pubblico, which contains frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Simone Martini and Duccio, and the adjoining Torre del Mangia, at 88m (289 feet) high the third tallest tower in Italy.  Visitors wanting to enjoy the stunning view from the top need patience and stamina.  A restriction on 25 people inside the tower at any one time can mean a lengthy queue in high season, followed by a 300-step climb.

Travel tip:

The Academy of Fine Arts in Florence can be found in Via Ricasoli, next door to the Galleria dell'Accamedia, which houses Michelangelo's original David. An instructional art academy, it was founded by Cosimo I de' Medici in 1563, under the influence of the artist and historian Giorgio Vasari. It was both a guild for working artists and a body of established artists responsible for supervising artistic production in the area.  Members have included Vasari, Michelangelo, Lazzaro Donati, Francesco da Sangallo, Agnolo Bronzino, Benvenuto Cellini, Bartolomeo Ammannati, and Giambologna.

More reading:

How Giorgio Vasari wrote the world's first history of art

Giacomo Manzù - the son of a shoemaker who taught himself to sculpt

The genius of Antonio Canova almost brought marble to life

Also on this day:

1757: The birth of eye surgeon Giuseppe Forlenza



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Giovanni Battista Rubini - opera singer

Tenor was as famous in his day as Caruso

Giovanni Battista Rubini

Giovanni Battista Rubini, born on this day in 1794, was a tenor as famous in his day as Enrico Caruso would be almost a century later, his voice having contributed to the popularity of opera composers Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti.

He was the first 19th-century non-castrati singer to become a major international star after two centuries in which audiences and composers were obsessed with the castrati.  Rubini's exceptionally high voice could match the coloratura of the castrati and he effectively launched the era of the bel canto tenor, which signalled the end of the dominance of the castrati.

Rubini was just 12 when he was taken on as a violinist and chorister at the Riccardi Theatre in Bergamo, not far from his home town of Romano di Lombardia. He was 20 when he made his professional debut in Pietro Generali’s Le lagrime d’una vedova at Pavia in 1814, then sang for 10 years in Naples in the smaller, comic opera houses.

Famed for a voice capable of reaching beyond the range of conventional tenors, particularly in the higher registers, in 1825 he sang the leading roles in Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Otello, and La donna del Lago in Paris and was soon regarded as the leading tenor of his day.

After he had premiered Bellini's Bianca e Gernando in Naples the following year, Bellini began to write specifically with Rubini's voice in mind, giving him the tenor leads in Il pirata, La sonnambula and I Puritani.

Rubini was cast in I Puritani with the soprano Giulia Grisi, the baritone Antonio Tamburini and the bass Luigi Lablache. The group achieved popularity together as the “Puritani quartet.”

The four appeared together again in Donizetti's Marino Faliero during the same season, in 1835, then travelled to London with the Irish composer Michael William Balfe for a further round of operatic engagements.

Rubini premiered Donizetti's La lettera anonima, Elvida, Il giovedì grasso, Gianni di Calais. Il paria and Anna Bolena as well as Marino Faliero.

A genuine international star, Rubini alternated during his peak years between the Théâtre-Italien in Paris and His Majesty’s Theatre in the Haymarket, London. 

He toured Germany and Holland with Franz Liszt in 1843 and in the same year performed in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Czar Nicholas I appointed him Director of Singing and made him Colonel of the Imperial Music.

A gateway in Romano di Lombardia featuring the Venetian
Lion of St Mark's. (Photo: Luca Giarelli CC BY-SA 3.0)

In 1845 he retired to his birthplace, the town of Romano di Lombardia, situated about 30 miles (45km) east of Milan in the province of Bergamo, about 12 miles from the city of Bergamo, which is also the birthplace of Donizetti.

He bought a palazzo there, where he died in 1854.  He was hardly an attractive figure, short and pockmarked according to references made at times to his physical appearance. Yet his fame enabled him to conduct numerous affairs and he passed away a month short of his 60th birthday, apparently stricken with a sexually transmitted disease that robbed him of his voice and ultimately his life.

Travel tip: 

Romano di Lombardia is a small town with a population of just under 19,000 in Lombardy, in the province of Bergamo, close to the River Serio and on the railway line between Milan and Brescia. Its history dates back to Roman times and later it was ruled for many years by Venice, evidence of which still exists around the town in symbols depicting the Lion of St Mark's.  The palazzo Rubini bought on his return to Romano became a museum after his death.

The Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo is built on the site of the
Teatro Riccardi, where Rubini sang and played the violin

Travel tip:

The Teatro Riccardi in Bergamo, where Rubini became a violinist and chorister at the age of 12, was destroyed by fire towards the end of the 18th century and rebuilt in brick.  It is now known as Teatro Donizetti.

More reading:

The brilliant career of Enrico Caruso 

The humble roots of Geatano Donizetti

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Enrico Caruso – opera singer

 Tenor's voice still regarded as greatest of all time 

Enrico Caruso sang in a choir while working
as an apprentice to a mechanical engineer

Operatic tenor Enrico Caruso was born on this day in 1873 in Naples.

Believed by many opera experts to be the greatest tenor of all time, Caruso had a brilliant 25-year singing career, appearing at many of the major opera houses in Europe and America.

He made more than 200 recordings of his beautiful voice, some made as early as 1902.

Caruso was born in Via San Giovanello agli Ottocalli in Naples and baptised the next day in the nearby church of San Giovanni e Paolo.

At the age of 11 he was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer and also worked alongside his father in a factory.

At the same time he was singing in his church choir and was told his voice showed enough promise for him to consider becoming a professional singer.

Until she died in 1888, he was encouraged by his mother. To earn money, he started to work as a street singer in Naples, progressing to singing Neapolitan songs as entertainment in cafes. Having decided to become an opera singer, Caruso took singing lessons, keeping up with them even during his compulsory military service.

He made his stage debut in 1895 at the Teatro Nuovo in Naples in Domenico Morelli’s L’amico Francesco, having been recommended by a musician who had heard him sing.

Listen to Enrico Caruso singing La Donne e Mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto

Caruso went on to perform at other theatres throughout Italy and was given a contract to sing at the prestigious Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1900. On his debut on December 26 of that year, he sang Rodolfo from Puccini’s La Bohème, conducted by Arturo Toscanini.

The following year he appeared in Monte Carlo, Warsaw, Buenos Aires and before the Tsar of Russia in St Petersburg.

Caruso took part in a grand concert at La Scala organised by Toscanini in 1901 to mark the death of Giuseppe Verdi.

Caruso in his role as the Duke in Rigoletto, in which
 he made his debut at the Met in New York in 1903

A month later he was engaged to make his first group of recordings for a gramophone company using a hotel room in Milan. The recordings quickly became bestsellers and Caruso’s fame spread.

He travelled to New York in 1903 to take up a contract with the Metroplitan Opera, making his debut in Verdi's Rigoletto in November.

A few months later Caruso began his association with the Victor Talking Machine Company.

His 1904 recording of Vesti la giubba, the moving aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci was the first recording ever to sell a million copies.

He made 863 appearances at the Met, attracting a substantial following from among New York’s Italian immigrants.

He continued to release recordings until close to his death in 1921. Caruso’s voice extended up to high D-flat in its prime and grew in power and weight as he became older. His singing can still be enjoyed by people today as his original recordings have been remastered and issued as CDs and digital downloads.

The singer’s health began to deteriorate in 1920 and he returned to Naples to recuperate. He was planning to go to a clinic in Rome in August 1921, and was staying overnight at the Albergo Vesuvio in Naples on the way, when his condition worsened and he died, aged 48.

The King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, opened the Royal Basilica of San Francesco di Paola, for his funeral, which was attended by thousands of people.

The distinctive Basilica of San Francesco di Paolo, overlooks
Piazza del Plebiscito in the centre of Naples

Travel tip:

The Basilica of San Francesco di Paola is on the west side of Piazza del Plebiscito, the main square in Naples . Originally the building had been planned as a tribute to Napoleon but after the Bourbons were restored to the throne of Naples, Ferdinand I made it into a church and dedicated it to San Francesco di Paola. It is similar in design to the Pantheon in Rome with a portico resting on columns and a high dome in the middle. Caruso’s body was taken through the streets of Naples in a horse-drawn hearse and he lay in state before his funeral so that people could pay their respects.

Find a hotel in Naples with Tripadvisor

Caruso on the balcony of the Grand Hotel
Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento

Travel tip:

Caruso loved the resort of Sorrento and his stay at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria in July 1921 is recognised by a plaque at the entrance gate to the hotel, which is just off Piazza Tasso, the main square in Sorrento. The photograph of Caruso in front of the view from the Excelsior Vittoria’s terrace was one of the last images taken of the tenor. The hotel later furnished Suite Caruso with the piano and writing desk used by the opera singer during his visit. The suite inspired the song ‘Caruso’ to be written by Italian pop singer Lucio Dalla in the late 1980s while he was staying at the Excelsior Vittoria.

Sorrento hotels from Booking.com

More reading:

How a chance opportunity set Arturo Toscanini on the path to fame

Guiseppe Verdi: Italy mourns the loss of a national symbol

Franco Corelli - the 'prince of tenors'

Also on this day:

1682: The birth of anatomist Giovanni Battista Morgagni, 'father' of pathology

1707: The birth of playwright Carlo Goldoni

2003: The death of comic actor Alberto Sordi

Selected books:

Enrico Caruso: His Life and Death, by Dorothy Caruso


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