Benedetto Civiletti (1 October 1845 – 22 September 1899) was an Italian sculptor, active mainly in his native Sicily. He is known for his
Romantic
Romantic may refer to:
Genres and eras
* The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries
** Romantic music, of that era
** Romantic poetry, of that era
** Romanticism in science, of that e ...
-style public sculptures on allegorical, genre, or historical themes.
Biography
Benedetto was born just outside of
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...
to poor parents, but apparently enjoyed making figurines in clay and stucco as a child. The nobleman Cavalier Guli noticing a work of the boy, obtained for him work in the studio of a ceramic
presepe
In the Christianity, Christian tradition, a nativity scene (also known as a manger scene, crib, crèche ( or ), or in Italian language, Italian ''presepio'' or ''presepe'', or Bethlehem) is the special exhibition, particularly during the Christ ...
or nativity scene artisan. He came to the attention of the Praetor of Palermo, prince Galati, who recommended him to study design with the painter
Andrea D'Antoni, who seeing the boy's affinity to sculpture, placed him in the care of the sculptor
Benedetto Delisi. In 1863, a sculpture of a ''Faun'' gained him the admiration of local artistic community. He gained a pension to train under the sculptor
Giovanni Dupré
Giovanni Dupré (1 March 1817 – 10 January 1882) was an Italian sculptor, of distant French stock long settled in Tuscany, who developed a reputation second only to that of his contemporary Lorenzo Bartolini.
Biography
Born in Siena, Dupré ...
in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
. He returned in 1865 to Palermo.
In Palermo, he completed the statue of a ''Young Dante'' or ''Dantino'', exhibited in Milan, Vienna, and the Universal Exposition in New Orleans, it won a diploma of honor at the latter showing. He then completed ''Ricordo'', exhibited in Palermo, and purchased for a mere 60 lire by Baron Tortirici. For some years, Benedetto labored at portraits and funeral monuments. Influenced by the stories of the Greek struggles for freedom in both the past and present, written by
Angelo Brofferio in his ''Scene Elleniche antica e nuova Grecia'', Civiletti created ''
Kanaris a Scio'', known in Palermo as ''Fratelli Kanaris'' or ''I marinai del Giardino Inglese''. This large marble sculpture shows two mustachioed and earnest men, one of them the Greek freedom fighter
Konstantinos Kanaris
Konstantinos Kanaris ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Κανάρης, ; c. 17901877), also anglicised as Constantine Kanaris or Canaris, was a Greek admiral, Prime Minister, and a hero of the Greek War of Independence.Woodhouse, p. 129.
Bio ...
, guiding a
fire ship
A fire ship or fireship, used in the days of wooden rowed or sailing ships, was a ship filled with combustibles, or gunpowder deliberately set on fire and steered (or, when possible, allowed to drift) into an enemy fleet, in order to destroy sh ...
with explosives towards the Ottoman fleet. Purchased by Prince
Umberto di Savoia
en, Albert Nicholas Thomas John Maria of Savoy
, house = Savoy
, father = Victor Emmanuel III of Italy
, mother = Princess Elena of Montenegro
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Racconigi, Piedmont, Kingdom of Italy
, dea ...
during its exhibition in Palermo, the sculpture was subsequently widely exhibited in Vienna, then Paris where it won a gold medal at the
Exposition Universelle in 1878.
He was prolific over the next decade with statues of ''Jesus in Gesthemane, ''Julius Caesar'', ''The Last Hour of Missolonghi'', ''La Rosmunda'', ''Frederick II set first stone of Castle of Palermo'', and others exhibited in various European capitals.
He died in Palermo, Sicily. Many of his public works are on display there.
Enciclopedia Treccani
article by Carol Bradley - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 26 (1982).
Gallery
Dante fanciullo (Dantino), Benedetto Civiletti.jpg, ''Dantino'' (1865)
Benedetto Civiletti La Tragedia SAM 0837.JPG, ''La Tragedia'' outside Teatro Massimo
The Teatro Massimo Vittorio Emanuele is an opera house and opera company located on the Piazza Verdi in Palermo, Sicily. It was dedicated to King Victor Emanuel II.
It is the biggest in Italy, and one of the largest of Europe (at the time of its i ...
, Palermo
Kanaris at Chios (sculpture).png, '' Kanaris a Scio'', Piersanti Mattarella Park, Palermo (1878)
Tiatru Politeama.jpg, ''Quadriga di Apollo'' atop Teatro Politeama
The Teatro Politeama is a theatre in Lisbon, Portugal that opened in 1913.
History
Teatro Politeama was conceived by Luís António Pereira. Buying land on what is now the Rua das Portas de Santo Antão, close to the ''Coliseu dos Recreios'', a ...
, Palermo
Il pifferaio - Benedetto Civiletti.jpg, ''Il Pifferaio'' (ca. 1890)
Benedetto Civiletti Lavoro SAM 0166.JPG, ''Lavoro'' (1895)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Civiletti Ben
1845 births
1899 deaths
19th-century Italian sculptors
People from Palermo