Giovanni Maria Benzoni - sculptor

Roman collectors called him the ‘new Canova’

Benzoni's self-portrait bust is in the
Biblioteca Angelo Mai in Bergamo

The sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni, who earned such fame in Rome in the mid-19th century that collectors and arts patrons in the city dubbed him the “new Canova” after the great Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova, was born on this day in 1809 in Songavazzo, a small mountain village in northern Lombardy.

Benzoni sculpted many allegorical and mythological scenes, but also busts and funerary monuments.  

Songavazzo being just outside Clusone in the province of Bergamo, Benzoni was regarded as a bergamasco - a native of the ancient city - even though he spent much of his life in Rome.

As such he was held in similar regard to celebrated bergamaschi such as the composer Gaetano Donizetti, the philologist Cardinal Angelo Mai and the painter Francesco Coghetti, all of whom lived in Rome during Benzoni’s time there.

He was later commissioned to sculpt a monumental tomb for Cardinal Mai in the Basilica of Sant’Anastasia al Palatino in the centre of Rome.

Benzoni’s parents, Giuseppe and Margherita, were farmers of modest means. Giovanni Maria worked briefly as a shepherd, but his father died when he was around 11 years old, after which he was sent to work in his uncle’s small carpentry shop at Riva di Solto, on the western shore of Lago d’Iseo, about 25km (16 miles) away.

Benzoni's Flight from Pompeii is
notable for its extraordinary realism

He began to show a talent for carving religious statues which came to the attention of a wealthy patron called Giuseppe Fontana, who was impressed enough to speak about him to Count Luigi Tadini, who would later open the Tadini Academy of Fine Arts in Lovere, another town on Lago d’Iseo.

Tadini asked Benzoni to make a copy of the Stele Tadini, the sculpture made for him by Antonio Canova in memory of the count’s son Faustino, who had died at a young age.

He was so impressed by Benzoni’s attention to detail and the accuracy of the reproduction that he arranged for the young man, who had never had a formal education, to attend a college in Lovere. 

When he reached the age of 18 or 19, Tadini took Benzoni to Rome, where he would work in the workshop of Giuseppe Fabris - an artist who would later became director general of the Vatican museums - and attend the prestigious Accademia di San Luca, where his fees were paid by Count Tadini.

Benzoni’s elegant marble sculptures had echoes of Canova’s work, which he greatly admired. One of his earliest pieces sculpted at the Academy, entitled Silent Love, attracted the approval of wealthy buyers in Rome, who soon began to speak of him as “il novello Canova” - the new Canova. 

After winning several competitions at San Luca, Benzoni began to earn money for his work and opened a small studio in Via Sant'Isidoro, in the centre of Rome, off the street now called Via Vittorio Veneto. Demand for his work grew so rapidly that he was obliged to find bigger premises, first in Via del Borghetto and later in Via del Babuino, between the Spanish Steps and Piazza del Popolo.

Benzoni's bust of his former patron,
Count Luigi Tadini, in Lovere

At the peak of his fame, he employed more than 50 assistants, making multiple versions of his most popular works. His Cupid and Psyche (1845) and Veiled Rebecca (1863) are considered to be two of his greatest triumphs.  Benzoni had clients in Holland, France, England and Ireland as well as in Italy.  

One of his later works, Flight from Pompeii or The Last Days of Pompeii (1868), was inspired by his visits to the Naples region in the 1850s and 1860s, when he was moved by the capacity for destruction of the volcano Vesuvius. The sculpture depicts with notable realism a man, his wife and their baby child, the man holding a cloak above his head to try to protect the trio as they seek refuge from the falling ashes.

The original was made for the wife of a wealthy New York hotelier. Among the many copies Benzoni produced, one is housed in a museum in Australia, another in the Neoclassical-style Town Hall at Todmorden, in the English county of Yorkshire.

Benzoni, who married into a noble Roman family and had six children, always lived in Rome but returned regularly to Bergamo, where he became a member of the city’s university and donated busts of famous citizens. His own self-portrait bust is in the Biblioteca Civica Angelo Mai on Piazza Vecchia in Bergamo’s mediaeval Città Alta.

He sculpted a statue of his former patron, Count Tadini, which stands on a plinth in a lakeside garden opposite the Tadini Academy in Lovere.

After his death in 1873, the popularity of Benzoni’s work declined, in common with the Neoclassical style as the newlly unified-Italy began to look forward. It has enjoyed a revival in recent years, however. Among his most famous works, his 1861 sculpture Innocenza difesa dalla fedeltà (Innocence Defended by Loyalty), which shows a young girl removing a thorn from the paw of her faithful pet dog, sold at Sotheby’s in New York in 2001 for more than $84,000 (€77,800; £66,800) and was presented as a gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Torre dell'orologio is one of several
notable buildings in the town of Clusone

Travel tip:

Benzoni’s birthplace, Songavazzo, is just outside the town of Clusone, about 35km (22 miles) northeast of Bergamo, a beautiful small town nestling on a plain against the backdrop of the Alpi Orobie - sometimes translated as the Orobic Alps - which attracts visitors all year round. Apart from its proximity to ski resorts, Clusone is famous for the frescoes that decorate some of its most significant buildings, such as the Municipio (Town Hall), the Torre dell'orologio (Clock Tower) and the Oratorio dei Disciplini (Oratory of the Disciplines), which has a macabre offering entitled The Triumph of Death. Clusone is also home to a prestigious annual jazz festival.

The Palazzo Tadini in Lovere on Lago d'Iseo is
home of the Accademia di Belle Arti Tadini

Travel tip:

Lovere, where Benzoni received his first formal education, is the largest town on the western shore of Lago d’Iseo  and has wonderful views of the top of the lake with its dramatic backdrop of mountains. Benzoni’s patron, Count Luigi Tadini of Crema, established the Accademia di Belle Arti Tadini in the lakefront Palazzo Tadini in 1829 and it has become one of the most important art galleries in Italy. The church of Santa Maria in Valvendra has some 16th century frescoes and the church of San Giorgio, which is built into a mediaeval tower, contains an important work by Palma il Giovane. A pleasant boat ride connects Lovere with Pisogne on the eastern shore of the lake, which has a railway line linking the lake with the city of Brescia. The landing stage adjoins Piazza XIII Martiri.

Also on this day:

1665: The death of painter and printmaker Elisabetta Sirani

1909: The birth of Lamberto Maggiorani, star of classic movie Bicycle Thieves

1938: The birth of journalist and talk show host Maurizio Costanza

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Arnaldo Pomodoro - sculptor

Romagnolo artist best known for his Sphere within Sphere series

Arnaldo Pomodoro, pictured in 1975, is regarded 
as one of Italy's most influential sculptors

The avant-garde sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, who became famous for a series of monumental spherical bronze sculptures with their outer surface cracked to reveal intricate interiors, was born in Morciano di Romagna, a small town just inland from the Adriatic coast, on this day in 1926.

Pomodoro’s first Sphere within Sphere (Sfera con Sfera) was installed in the Cortile della Pigna courtyard at the Vatican Museums in Roma in the 1960s and he has subsequently produced versions for many locations around the world.

These include Trinity College, Dublin, the United Nations Plaza and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, museums in Washington D.C., Tehran and Tokyo and on the beach front at Pesaro, another Adriatic resort not far from Pomodoro’s birthplace.

Broadly speaking, the sculptures, which contain a smaller sphere at the centre of the larger, broken sphere, separated by layers of what look a little like the inner workings of a watch, represent the fragility of the world or of society and the complexities that lie beneath the surface.

Although he was interested in art from a young age, when he was inspired by the countryside and architecture of Montefeltro, an historical region close to where he grew up, Pomodoro’s career initially followed a different path.

Pomodoro's first Sfera con Sfera, which is at the
 centre of the Cortile della Pigna at the Vatican

He studied at the Technical Institute for Surveyors in Rimini and secured a job in the Public Works Office in Pesaro, both resorts being within 30km (19 miles) of his home. His work involved the restoration of public buildings.

Yet his curiosity with forms of art led him to study subjects from stage set design to jewellery design in his spare time.

It was after he moved to Milan in 1954, when the city was seen to be at the cutting edge of theatre, art and music, that he began to pursue his interest more vigorously. He started to frequent the Jamaica Bar in the Brera district, a popular meeting place for artists and intellectuals.

His earliest sculptures were shown at the Galleria del Naviglio in Milan in 1955. Arnaldo’s younger brother, Giò, was similarly keen to develop his talent for sculpture and the two participated in the Venice Biennale.

Pomodoro spent the early part of the 1960s in the United States after obtaining a grant to study American art. He exhibited at a number of festivals, in 1964 winning the International Prize for Sculpture at the São Paulo Biennale and also the National Prize for Sculpture at the XXXII Venice Biennale.

He remained in the United States, becoming an artist in residence at Stanford University, and then at University of California, Berkeley.

Disco Grande in Milan is one of
Pomodoro's personal favourites

In the 1970s, Pomodoro gained renown for his work with geometric shapes, with disks, pyramids and cubes but in particular spheres.  His Sfera con Sfera at the Vatican Museums attracted huge interest, leading to commissions to create versions of the same sculpture for locations around the world, around 20 in total.

Other works by Pomodoro to have found permanent homes include a large fibreglass crucifix for the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Wisconsin, which features a 14-foot (4.27m) diameter crown of thorns which hovers over the figure of Christ.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, a decorative pillar with a sphere on its top, called Solar Form, in the Amaliehaven park close to Amalienborg Palace, was sculpted by Pomodoro, who is also responsible for a pyramid named Forms of Myth, which was bought by the city of Brisbane in Australia after being unveiled at Brisbane's World Expo. Another pyramid sculpture, Wing Beat: Homage to Boccioni, sits in the centre of a large fountain in Los Angeles.

Pomodoro, now 96, has described his Disco Grande, which can be found in Piazza Filippo Meda in the centre of Milan, as one of the works that has given him the most personal pride.  The 4.5m (15ft) bronze disc, which weighs around seven tons and has two faces, has five large cracks extending to its outer edges, with a design that evokes an exploding sun or star at the centre.

The sculptor talks of Milan as the city that adopted him and the disc, which has echoes of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, the drawing he made in the late 15th century of a male figure within a circle, as representing the dynamism, optimism and solar strength of the city.

Pomodoro's Sfera con Sfera on the promenade
in Pesaro, where he worked as a young man

Travel tip:

Pesaro, where Pomodoro worked after graduating from college, is a coastal city in Le Marche with a 15th century Ducal Palace, commissioned by Alessandro Sforza. It has become known as the city of music because the opera composer Gioachino Rossini was born there in 1792. The Rossini Opera Festival has taken place in Pesaro every summer since 1980 and the town is home to the Conservatorio Statale di Musica Gioachino Rossini, which was founded from a legacy left by the composer.  In addition to its long stretch of sandy beach, which extends for around 7km (4.3 miles), the city, which has a population of almost 100,000, is dubbed the Città della Bicicletta (the City of the Bicycle) for its extensive network of cycle paths.

A characteristic narrow street in
Milan's fashionable Brera district

Travel tip:

The Brera district of Milan is thought to derive its name from the Lombardic word ‘brayda’, which was ninth century military terminology for ‘an area cleared of trees’.  Today, it is one of Milan’s most fashionable neighbourhoods, its narrow streets lined with trendy bars and restaurants. It has been traditionally home to the city’s artists and writers, which gives it a  Bohemian feel that has brought comparisons with Montmartre in Paris.  The Brera is home to the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and the Brera Art Gallery. The Jamaica dal 1911 Ristorante, where Pomodoro and his artist friends were regulars, can be found in Via Brera, the street that dissects the area, between Via Pontaccio and Via Fiori Chiari.

Also on this day:

1945: The birth of partisan Giuseppina Tuissi

1980: The birth of tennis champion Francesca Schiavone

2008: The death of actor and voice dubber Claudio Capone

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Pompeo Coppini - sculptor

Italian emigrant famous for Texas monument

Pompeo Coppini spent much of his
career working in Texas

The sculptor Pompeo Coppini, best known for the Alamo Cenotaph in San Antonio, Texas, was born on this day in 1870 in Moglia, a village in Lombardy a few kilometres south of the city of Mantua.

Coppini emigrated to the United States at the age of 26 and after initially working in New York moved to Texas, where the majority of his work can be found.

The Alamo Cenotaph, also known as The Spirit of Sacrifice, consists of a 60ft high sloping shaft of grey Georgia marble resting on a base of pink Texas granite. Carved into the sides of the monument, erected near the scene of the siege of the Alamo Mission during the Texas Revolution in 1836, are images of the Alamo defenders including William B Travis, Jim Bowie, David Crockett and James Bonham, while the names of those who died at the Alamo were etched along the base.

It was commissioned to commemorate the centenary of the siege and took two years to complete. It is now the centrepiece of a square known as the Alamo Plaza.

The son of a musician, Pompeo moved with his family from Moglia to Florence in 1880 at the age of 10. His craft skills began to earn him an income at an early age through work with ceramics and miniature models of famous monuments.

Coppini's most famous work is the
Alamo Cenotaph in San Antonio 

At 16, he enrolled at the Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno in Florence, furthering his knowledge and technical skills under the Genovese sculptor Augusto Rivalta.

Upon graduating, he opened a small studio and continued to make items he could sell, including busts of local celebrities and cemetery monuments. 

Business was slow, however, and in 1896, Coppini followed the example set by others of his generation in deciding to move to the United States, specifically New York.

He arrived there, reportedly with nothing but a trunk full of clothes and $40 in cash, and found work sculpting figures for a wax museum before being commissioned to create a memorial to Francis Scott Key, best known for writing the lyrics for the American national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner.

A model hired to pose for Coppini’s memorial to Key, Elizabeth di Barbieri, ultimately became his wife.

His progress in New York was steady if not spectacular. Craving a base which would give him more chance to stand out, in 1901 he moved to Texas to work alongside the German-born sculptor Frank Teich. A year later he became an American citizen.

Apart from his most famous work, sculpted with the help of a $100,000 donation from the state of Texas, Coppini’s other creations in Texas include the Confederate Monument in Paris, Terry's Texas Rangers Monument and Hood's Texas Brigade Monument in Austin, the Littlefield Memorial Fountain, also in Austin, with which he worked with the French-born architect Paul Cret, and several statues at the Texas State Fair Hall of State in Dallas.

Coppini's Littlefield Memorial Fountain
at the University of Texas in Austin

Coppini sculpted three statues of George Washington, the founding father of the United States. The first, to commemorate the 1910 centennial of Mexican Independence, was installed in 1912 in the Plaza Dinamarca since renamed Plaza Washington, in Mexico City; the second, in Portland, Oregon, was created to commemorate the 1926 sesquicentennial of the Declaration of Independence; the third, commissioned by the Texas Society, Daughters of the American Revolution to commemorate the 1932 bicentennial of Washington's birth, stands on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, although because of fund-raising problems it was not installed until February, 1955.

Coppini died in San Antonio in 1957, his body laid to rest in the city’s Sunset Memorial Park in a tomb he sculpted himself.

Travel tip:

Moglia, the village where Coppini was born, is situated a little over 30km (19 miles) south of Mantua in Lombardy. With a population of more than 5,000 today, it has grown to about five times its size in the last 150 years. A feature is a marble monument by Coppini to the Martyrs of War, finished in 1951 and sited in front of the village’s primary school. Moglia was hit badly in the 2012 earthquake that hit the area, with the Town Hall, the parish church and several other buildings in the historic centre suffering severe damage, along with many private residences.

The Palazzo Ducale in Mantua was the home for  
four centuries of the Gonzaga family 

Travel tip:

Mantua is an atmospheric old city in Lombardy, to the southeast of Milan. In the Renaissance heart of the city is Piazza Mantegna, where the 15th century Basilica of Sant’Andrea houses the tomb of the artist, Andrea Mantegna. The church was originally built to accommodate the large number of pilgrims who came to Mantua to see a precious relic, an ampoule containing what were believed to be drops of Christ’s blood mixed with earth. This was claimed to have been collected at the site of his crucifixion by a Roman soldier.  Mantua is famous for its Renaissance Palazzo Ducale, the seat of the Gonzaga family between 1328 and 1707, in which the Camera degli Sposi is decorated with frescoes by Mantegna, depicting the life of Eleonora’s ancestor, Ludovico Gonzaga and his family in the 15th century. 

Also on this day:

1860: The birth of politician Vittorio Orlando

1946: The birth of actor and director Michele Placido

1979: The birth of footballer Andrea Pirlo

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Luca della Robbia - sculptor

Renaissance ‘genius’ famed for glazed terracotta

Della Robbia's Resurrection over the door of
the northern sacristy in the Florence duomo

Luca della Robbia, whose work saw him spoken of in the same breath as Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti among the great sculptors of the Renaissance, died on this day in 1482 in Florence.

Della Robbia worked in marble and bronze initially but enjoyed considerable success after inventing a process for making statuary and reliefs in terracotta decorated with a colourful mineral glaze.

Thought to be around 82 or 83 years old, he had shared the full details of the process only with his family. On his death, his nephew Andrea della Robbia inherited his workshop and other members of the family, notably his great-nephews Giovanni della Robbia and Girolamo della Robbia, continued to employ his methods with success into the 16th century.

Terracotta literally means cooked earth and Della Robbia’s technique involved the application of colourful glazes made using lead, tin and other minerals to the fired clay. 

Sculpting in terracotta was not new, having been invented in the ancient world, but Della Robbia’s idea to coat the terracotta with a glaze that fused with the clay below gave the surface a brightness and shine and made the sculpture particularly durable. 

Della Robbia decorated the dome of Brunelleschi's
Pazzi Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Croce

It took him many years to perfect his technique. The clay itself came from riverbeds, where Della Robbia would look for a light-colored, chalky variety of clay that bound particularly well with his glazes, cleaning and sifting it before adding soft river sand to achieve optimal consistency.  The blend of minerals in the glaze itself was a closely guarded secret.

The first commissions for which Della Robbia used the technique were in the Duomo of Florence, where between 1442 and 1445 he sculpted a lunette of the Resurrection over the door of the northern sacristy and a relief of the Ascension over the southern sacristy door.

He went on to execute many more works in the medium, of which some of the most important are the roundels of the Apostles in Filippo Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, the roof of Michelozzo’s Chapel of the Crucifix in the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte, Florence, and a lunette over the entrance of the Church of San Domenico at Urbino.

His final major work was an altarpiece in the Palazzo Vescovile at Pescia, a small town just over an hour from Florence, near Montecatini Terme.

Della Robbia's bust in the Pincio
Gardens in Rome

It was the Renaissance polymath Leon Battista Alberti who compared Della Robbia to fellow sculptors Donatello and Ghiberti, ranking him also alongside the architect Brunelleschi and the painter Masaccio in terms of their artistic genius. This assessment took into account more than just his work in glazed terracotta, although his use of bright colours gave his work in the medium a particular charm that was very popular.

In the early part of his career, Della Robbia, who may have trained as a goldsmith, worked with Ghiberti on the famous bronze doors of the Florence Baptistry - the so-called Gates of Paradise.

Brunelleschi often used him for sculpture on his buildings. His important commission was for the Cantoria - a singing gallery - in Florence's Duomo, for which he was probably chosen by the Medici family.  The project took seven years and his depictions in the 10 panels of children singing, dancing and making music, the figures lively and finely observed in the manner of Renaissance naturalism, established him as a major Florentine artist.

Della Robbia’s other important works in marble include a tabernacle carved for the Chapel of San Luca in the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital in Florence, and the tomb of Benozzo Federighi, bishop of nearby Fiesole.

Florence's magnificent Duomo towers above
the skyline of Della Robbia's city

Travel tip:

The Florence Duomo - the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore - with its enormous dome by Filippo Brunelleschi and campanile by Giotto, is one of Italy's most recognisable and most photographed sights, towering above the city and the dominant feature of almost every cityscape. From groundbreaking to consecration, the project took 140 years to complete and involved a series of architects. Arnolfo di Cambio, who also designed the church of Santa Croce and the Palazzo Vecchio was the original architect engaged and it was to his template, essentially, that the others worked.  When he died in 1410, 14 years after the first stone was laid, he was succeeded by Giotto, who himself died in 1337, after which his assistant Andrea Pisano took up the project.  Pisano died in 1348, as the Black Death swept Europe, and a succession of architects followed, culminating in Brunelleschi, who won a competition - against Lorenzo Ghiberti - to build the dome, which remains the largest brick-built dome ever constructed.

Find a hotel in Florence with Booking.com

Piazzo Mino is the main square in the centre of
Fiesole, in the hills to the northeast of Florence

Travel tip:

Fiesole, a town of about 14,000 inhabitants situated in an elevated position about 8km (5 miles) northeast of Florence, has since the 14th century been a popular place to live for wealthy Florentines and even to this day remains the richest municipality in Florence.  Formerly an important Etruscan settlement, it was also a Roman town of note, of which the remains of a theatre and baths are still visible.  Fiesole's cathedral, built in the 11th century, is supposedly built over the site of the martyrdom of St. Romulus. In the middle ages, Fiesole was as powerful as Florence until it was conquered by the latter in 1125 after a series of wars.

Fiesole hotels by Booking.com

More reading:

Lorenzo Ghiberti and the 'Gates of Paradise'

Filippo Brunelleschi, the genius who designed the dome of the Florence duomo

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the Florentine who made his mark in Rome

Also on this day:

1791: The birth of painter Francesco Hayez

1918: The death of Nobel Peace Prize winner Ernesto Teodoro Moneta

1941: The birth of author and politician Raffaele Lauro

1953: The founding of the giant oil and gas company ENI

1966: The birth of footballer Andrea Silenzi

(Picture credits: Resurrection by Sailko; Pazzi Chapel ceiling by Mattis; bust of della Robbia by Lalupa; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Pietro Canonica - sculptor

Artist in demand from European royalty

Pietro Canonica was well known for creating busts, statues
and portraits for the monarchy and nobility across Europe

The sculptor Pietro Canonica, who was also a proficient painter and an accomplished musician but who found himself most in demand to create busts, statues and portraits for the royal courts of Europe, was born on this day in 1869 in Moncalieri in Piedmont.

Canonica’s ability to create realism in his work, bringing marble sculptures almost to life, resulted in an endless stream of commissions, taking him from Buckingham Palace in London to the courts of Paris, Vienna, Brussels and St Petersburg.

He was highly skilled in equestrian statuary and after the First World War was commissioned to create many monuments to the fallen, which can be seen in squares around Italy to this day.

Canonica’s mastery of Naturalism and Realism were the qualities that set him apart, exemplified nowhere with such stunning effect as in his 1909 work L'abisso - The Abyss - which depicts Paolo and Francesca, the ill-fated lovers from Dante’s Inferno, locked in their eternal punishment, clinging desperately to one another with fear in their eyes, her fingers digging into his back as the vortex in which they are trapped drags them towards their fate.

A master of Realism, Canonica produced some
extraordinary works, such as L'abisso (The Abyss)

His depictions of female figures, in particular, were notably lifelike.

Canonica’s precocious talent saw him begin an apprenticeship at the age of 10 and be admitted to the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Turin the following year.  His depictions of Naturalism and Realism were unusual for the time.

He was regularly commissioned for funerary works in the early part of his career as noble and aristocratic families sought grave markers that exuded emotion and tenderness.

He moved in 1922 to Rome, and participated in important national and international exhibitions in Milan, Rome, Venice, Paris, London, Berlin, Dresden, Monaco, Brussels and St. Petersburg. He created portraits and commemorative works with a passion his clients appreciated.

He took commissions, too, from as far afield as Turkey, Egypt, Iraq and Bolivia in South America.

Canonica became professor of sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia in 1910 and later at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. He was one of the first to be granted membership of the Royal Academy of Italy in 1929.

His religious subjects were among his most successful works, reflecting his characteristic sensitivity and sense of sorrow. His Testa di Cristo (Head of Christ), which he exhibited in Naples in 1922, shows Christ with a raised shoulder, lowered eyelids and slightly open mouth as subtle indications of his suffering.

Pietro Canonica's bust of the Italian
king, Victor Emmauel III

Deeply saddened by the destruction of his work in Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1918, Canonica found his reputation devalued somewhat by the collapse of the monarchy and the defeat of Fascism, having been associated with both.

However, in 1950, the Italian president Luigi Einaudi nominated him life senator for his outstanding artistic achievements.

Much of his work nowadays is preserved in the Museo Pietro Canonica in the Villa Borghese in Rome, in a building known as the Fortezzuola, which was given to him by the Rome city authorities to restore after a fire had curtailed its use as administrative offices in 1919.

Originally used for the breeding of ostriches, peacocks and ducks for the Borghese family to hunt, it is notable for the medieval style castellated walls designed by the architect Antonio Asprucci.  Canonica, who converted the stables to accommodate his work, was told he could live there so long as his collections were ultimately donated to the city.

In addition to sculpting skills, Canonica was also a talented musician, composing several operas and other works.

As well as in the Museo Pietro Canonica, examples of Canonica’s sculpture and statuary around the world include his bust of King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace, his Monument to the Republic in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, where he also sculpted several statues of the revoltuionary statesman Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, monuments to Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI in the Vatican and to King Faysal I of Iraq on horseback in Baghdad.

He died in 1959 in Rome at the age of 90.

The Castello at Moncalieri, a former residence of
Victor Emmanuel II, is now a Carabinieri college

Travel tip:

Moncalieri, where Canonica was born, is a town with a population of almost 58,000 people. About 8km (5 miles) south of Turin, within the city’s metropolitan area, it is notable for its castle, built in the 12th century and enlarged in the 15th century, which became a favourite residence of King Victor Emmanuel II and subsequently his daughter, Maria Clotilde, and is listed among the World Heritage Site Residences of the Royal House of Savoy. The castle now houses a prestigious training college for the Carabinieri, Italy’s quasi-military police force.

The Tempio Esculapio by Antonio Asprucci is a feature
of the Villa Borghese Gardens in the centre of Rome

Travel tip:

The Villa Borghese Gardens is among Rome’s largest public parks. The gardens date back to 1605, when Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and patron of the sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, began converting a former vineyard.  The park also includes the Galleria Borghese, built in 1613 for Cardinal Borghese to display his magnificent art collection. The gallery now houses masterpieces by Caravaggio, Titian and Lotto as well as sculptures by Bernini and Canova. To visit the gallery it is necessary to reserve tickets. For details visit www.galleriaborghese.it

More reading: 

La Pietà - Michelangelo's masterpiece

Luigi Einaudi, the politician and winemaker who was Italy's second president

Pietro Bracci, sculptor of the Trevi Fountain

Also on this day:

1773: The death of architect Luigi Vanvitelli, designer of the Royal Palace at Caserta

1926: The birth of movie actor Cesare Danova

1930: The birth of cycling champion Gastone Nencini

(Picture credits: Moncalieri Castle by Gianni Careddu; Tempio Esculapio by Jean-Christophe Benoist; via Wikimedid Commons)

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Gaetano Russo - sculptor

Creator of New York’s Christopher Columbus Monument

Gaetano Russo's monument to Christopher
Columbus has been in place since 1892

The sculptor Gaetano Russo, famous for having created the monument dedicated to Christopher Columbus at Columbus Circle in New York, was born on this day in 1847 in the Sicilian city of Messina.

Russo’s 13ft (3.96m) statue of the 15th century Genoese explorer, carved from a block of Carrara marble, stands on top of a 70ft (21.3m) granite column, decorated with bronze reliefs depicting the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, Columbus’s three caravel sailing ships.  At the foot of the column there is an angel holding the globe.

Unveiled on October 12, 1892 on the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, the statue was a gift to the city from New York’s Italian-American community, funded by a campaign by an Italian-language newspaper, Il Progresso.

For the laying of the statue’s cornerstone, a procession took place from Little Italy to what is now called Columbus Circle, at the southern end of Central Park, a distance of 6.5km (4.2 miles). Close to 10,000 people are said to have attended the dedication ceremony.

Additional ornamentation around the base of the column depicts Columbus’s journey, American patriotic symbols, and allegorical figures. The monument was restored in 1992 on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of his transatlantic crossing.

The Columbus Circle intersection, seen from the air, is
an important part of the geography of New York City

Columbus Circle, at the intersection of Broadway, Central Park West, Central Park South (West 59th Street) and Eighth Avenue, has a symbolic importance to New Yorkers, as the traditional geographic centre of the city.

For decades, the Hagstrom Map Company sold maps that showed the areas within 25 miles (40km) or 75 miles (121km) of Columbus Circle. Even today, the New York City government employee handbook defines 'long-distance travel' as a trip beyond a 75-mile (121km) radius of Columbus Circle.

The monument came under threat in 2018 as part of a nationwide review of whether figures regarded traditionally as American heroes, and who were celebrated in statues and other monuments, deserved their status. Columbus was controversial for having taken back indigenous people from the Caribbean to sell in Spain as slaves and there were calls for the statue to be taken down.

However, after Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, who is descended from Campanian immigrants, had spoken out on behalf of his fellow Italian-Americans in upholding the importance of Columbus in the links between the two countries, it was announced that the statue would stay in place but that there would be notices placed in or around Columbus Circle explaining the history of Columbus and of the monument.

The angel holding a globe on the pedestal
of the Christopher Columbus Monument

Gaetano Russo was born in Via dell’Oliveto in Messina and baptised in the nearby church of San Leonardo.

Little is known about his early life until 1870, when he received a grant to go to Rome where he studied with Girolamo Masini and Giulio Monteverde.

He worked in both Rome and his native Sicily. In the capital he was commissioned to sculpt bas-reliefs for the facade of the building that now houses the Academy of Dramatic Art, the pediments of the Policlinico Umberto I and the cenotaph dedicated to Felice Bisazza.

In Messina he was commissioned to make funerary sculptures for the monumental cemetery and the monument to Marco Miceli Puglisi, dated 1877, on which stands an imposing winged figure.

No record of Russo exists after 1908 and it is assumed that he died in the devastating earthquake of the same year that destroyed much of Messina and may have killed up to 200,000 people. It is known that his brothers, Letterio and Stellario, both perished and that all the buildings in and around Via dell'Oliveto, a heavily populated area of ​​the city, disappeared.

Messina's 12th century cathedral, originally built by the
Normans, suffered serious damage in the 1908 earthquake

Travel tip:

Messina is a city in the northeast of Sicily, separated from mainland Italy by the Strait of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island and is home to a large Greek-speaking community. The 12th century cathedral in Messina has a bell tower which houses one of the largest astronomical clocks in the world, built in 1933. Originally built by the Normans, the cathedral, which still contains the remains of King Conrad, ruler of Germany and Sicily in the 13th century, had to be almost entirely rebuilt following the earthquake in 1908, and again in 1943, after a fire triggered by Allied bombings.

Gaetano Russo sculpted the figures in the pediment
over the entrance to the Policlinico Umberto I in Rome

Travel tip:

Located in the San Lorenzo quarter, the Policlinico Umberto I of Rome, where Russo sculpted the bas relief figures decorating the pediment over the main entrance, is the polyclinic of the faculty of medicine and surgery of the Sapienza Università di Roma. The city’s main hospital, it is the second largest public hospital in Italy. Its construction was promoted by Italian physicians and politicians Guido Baccelli and Francesco Durante and began in 1883 to plans by Giulio Podesti and Filippo Laccetti. The opening was presided over by the then university rector Luigi Galassi and by King Umberto I, after whom it is named.


More reading:

The Alabama legacy of Giuseppe Moretti

How Corrado 'Joe' Parnucci made his made on Michigan

The genius of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Also on this day:

1891: The birth of World War One flying ace Luigi Olivari

1941: The death of  mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita

1966: The birth of footballer Stefano Eranio


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Giovanni Battista Falda - engraver

Printmaker who found market among Grand Tourists

An engraving by Giovanni Battista Falda of Gian Lorenzo
Bernini's tour de force, the Piazza San Pietro in Rome 

The engraver and printmaker Giovanni Battista Falda, who turned his artistic talent into commercial success as 17th century Rome welcomed the first waves of Europe’s Grand Tourists, was born on this day in 1643 in Valduggia in Piedmont.

Falda created engravings depicting the great buildings, gardens and fountains of Rome, as well as maps and representations of ceremonial events, which soon became popular with visitors keen to take back pictorial souvenirs of their stay, to remind them of what they had seen and to show their friends.

He took commissions to make illustrations of favourite views and of specific buildings and squares, and because the early Grand Tourists were mainly young men from wealthy families in Britain and other parts of Europe he was able to charge premium prices.

Giovanni Battista Falda's depiction of the church of Santa
Maria della Rotonda, popularly known as the Pantheon

Falda showed artistic talent at an early age and was apprenticed to the painter Francesco Ferrari as a child, before moving to Rome when he was 14 to be mentored by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the sculptor and architect who had such a huge influence on the look of Rome.

His early draughtsmanship caught the eye of the printmaker and publisher Giovan Giacomo De Rossi, who took Falda on as an apprentice at his print shop.

The De Rossi family were the principal publishers of prints in Rome during the 17th century, and almost all of Falda’s work was published by them.

Falda was taught all the technical skills of engraving and etching, while also perfecting his own style of drawing, which was focused on realistic representation of his subjects.

A section of Falda's incredibly detailed map of Rome

He made the acquaintance of emerging figures of the Roman art world, such as Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, and when he finished his training at the age of 20 began a career as a printmaker.

His specialisation was the urban landscape of Rome, and he is best known for his vedute - views - of architecture throughout the city, especially the renovation projects backed by Pope Alexander VII. In 1665, the De Rossi printshop published a book of prints by Falda depicting views of the construction and restoration projects sponsored by the Pope.

Gardens and fountains interested Falda in particular. Two of his most famous series collected in book form are Giardini di Roma (1670) and Fontane di Roma (1675).

An illustration from the collection of garden views created
by Giovanni Battista Falda, entitled Giardini di Roma

Falda was a significant influence on the work of later Roman printmakers, such as Giovanni Francesco Ventunni, Alessandro Specchi, and Giuseppe Vasi.

With more than 300 architectural views attributed to him, Falda also had much to do with Rome’s renown in the 17th century for the veduta as a genre and helped change the perception of the city, shifting the focus away from its ancient history and underlining its new status as a modern, progressive and expanding metropolis.

In 1676, he produced a 12-sheet map of Rome depicting the city in minute detail at the height of its Baroque splendor.

The first of the Grand Tourists, who arrived in Rome in the mid-17th century, bought so much of Falda’s work that he soon grew prosperous, although he did not live long to enjoy his wealth. He passed away at the age of just 34 in 1678.

Today, his works are still collectible. When they come up at auction, they usually sell for between £2,500 and £3,500 (€2,800 - €3,900), although some have realised up to £20,000 (€22,500).

Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in
Rome's historic Piazza Navona

Travel tip:

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who was born in 1598 and lived for more than 81 years, is the architect and sculptor behind many of Rome’s most famous landmarks, particular the fountains that Giovanni Battista Falda depicted with such success in his engravings. The Fontana della Barcaccia in Piazza di Spagna, the Fontana del Tritone in Piazza Barberini, and the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi and Fontana del Moro in Piazza Navona are all by Bernini, although he is more famous even for his work at St Peter’s Basilica, which included numerous beautiful sculptures within the church and the architectural masterpiece that is Piazza San Pietro - St Peter’s Square - with its majestic sweep of statue-topped colonnades.

The Isola San Giulio in the middle of the beautiful Lago
di Orta in Piedmont, not far from where Falda was born

Travel tip:

Valduggia, the small town in northern Piedmont where Falda was born, is just 15km (9 miles) from Lago di Orta, a smaller and less well known lake than Maggiore, Como, Garda and Iseo, yet one that is no less beautiful and has the benefit of being less crowded than its more high-profile neighbours. The small town of Orta San Giulio, at the south-eastern edge of the lake, is the most important town on the shores of Lake Orta, boasting an attractive historical centre with narrow cobbled streets and many bars and ice cream shops.  Boats leave the harbour to cross to Isola San Giulio, the charming island in the centre of the lake where visitors can find the ruins of a 12th century basilica and follow a path that follows the circumference of the island.


More reading:

Gian Lorenzo Bernini - the greatest sculptor of the 17th century

How Pietro da Cortona became the leading Baroque painter of his time

Visentini engravings took Venice to the wider world

Also on this day:

The Feast of St Ambrose in Milan

1302: The birth of Milanese ruler Azzione Visconti

1598: The birth of Gian Lorenzo Bernini


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Domenico Antonio Vaccaro - painter, sculptor and architect

Creative genius whose legacy is still visible around Naples

The beautiful Palazzo dell'Immacolatella at the waterfront
of the Port of Naples is a famous Vaccaro palace

The painter, sculptor and architect Domenico Antonio Vaccaro, who created some notable sculptures and designed some of the finest churches and palaces around Naples in the early 18th century, was born in the great southern Italian city on June 3, 1678.

Vaccaro was also an accomplished painter, but it is his architectural legacy for which he is most remembered.

Among the famous churches attributed to Vaccaro are the Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo, which overlooks Piazza Dante, and the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Concezione a Montecalvario, which can be found in the Spanish Quarter, while he completed the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Stella in the district of the same name.

His notable palaces included the Palazzo Spinelli di Tarsia, just off Via Toledo, and the beautiful late Baroque palace, the Palazzo dell’Immacolatella, built on the water’s edge in the 1740s and now dwarfed by the enormous ocean-going ships that dock either side of it.

Vaccaro's obelisk in the Piazza di San
Domenico Maggiore in the heart of Naples

Vaccaro was also responsible for finishing the carved obelisk topped by a bronze statue in Piazza di San Domenico Maggiore.

He sculpted a statue of San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, in the city’s cathedral, a Guardian Angel in the nearby church of San Paolo Maggiore, a Moses in the church of San Ferdinando, and the statues of Penitence and Solitude for the former monastery of San Martino, now a museum.

Vaccaro was the son of another accomplished painter, Lorenzo Vaccaro, who encouraged him to study for a legal career.  However, he would often forego his studies in order to make drawings and in time his father accepted his passion could not be quelled.  He began to work alongside his father and trained in the workshop of Francesco Solimena, a prolific painter of the Baroque era.

He focussed largely on painting in his early years but gave evidence of the breadth of his talent when he was asked to redesign the church of San Michele Arcangelo in Anacapri, on the island of Capri, which was noted for its majolica floor.

Vaccaro would later be responsible for the majolica cloister at the Basilica of Santa Chiara in Naples.

Vaccaro's Guardian Angel in the church
of San Paolo Maggiore

He did less painting and more sculpture and design following the shocking murder of his father in 1706 at the family farm in Torre del Greco, seemingly by two paid assassins, although it was not established who had hired them.

Vaccaro reached his artistic maturity following his father’s death and the commission to build the small church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Montecalvario came in 1718.

The Palazzo dell’Immacolatella is widely recognised as one of the most interesting historical and artistic buildings in Naples.

Commissioned by the Bourbon king Charles III, it was built as part of a restoration of the sea front between Castel Nuovo and Porta di Massa, and and initially stood on a peninsula connected to the mainland by two bridges.

The building, which was to serve as a quarantine station, is characterized by the statue of the Virgin Mary at the front of the building at the top, attributed to Francesco Pagano.  There are plans to restore the building, which currently does not have a purpose, as a museum.

For a brief period in the 19th century, the palace was embellished with the Fountain of the Immacolatella, designed by Michelangelo Naccherino. It was relocated and now stands on the seaside road, via Nazario Sauro, near the Castel dell'Ovo, and is known now as the Fountain of the Giant.

Vaccaro married to Giuseppina Pierro, with whom he had 10 children. From 1724 until his death in 1745 he lived in the Palace of Magnocavallo, in Via Francesco Girardi, near the Parco dei Quartieri Spagnoli.

The beautiful interior of the church of San Domenico
Maggiore, founded by Dominican friars

Travel tip:

The Piazza di San Domenico Maggiore takes its name from the nearby church of San Domenico, founded by friars of the Dominican Order, built around another church on the same site dating back to the 10th century. The square is bordered by the long narrow street popularly known as Spaccanapoli, one of the three original east-to-west streets of the Greek city of Neapolis. The adjoining monastery was the original seat of the University of Naples, where Saint Thomas Aquinas, a former member of the Dominican community, taught theology in 1272.

The Port of Naples, with two cruise ships dwarfing the
Palazzo dell'Immacolatella in the centre of the picture

Travel tip:

The Port of Naples is one of the largest Italian seaports and one of the largest on the Mediterranean, with an annual cargo traffic capacity of around 25 million tons and 500,000 container units, plus passenger traffic of some nine million people.  As well as a regular procession of passenger  cruise ships calling at Naples, the port provides ferry services for various destinations around the Bay of Naples, including the islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida, plus services to destinations further afield such as Sicily and Sardinia, the Aeolian Islands and Ponza.

Also on this day:

1751: The birth of the blessed Vincent Romano, priest dedicated to helping poor of Naples

1977: The death of film director Roberto Rossellini

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