Costantino Corti (1823/1824–1873) was a

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

ese sculptor who exhibited at Brera and 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 ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. Corti was most noted for his colossal statue ''

Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passage ...

''. He also produced statues commemorating

Federico Borromeo Federico Borromeo (18 August 1564 – 21 September 1631) was an Italian cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, a prominent figure of Counter-Reformation Italy. Early life Federico Borromeo was born in Milan as the second son of Giulio Cesare Borro ...

, Conrad of Swabia, and the astronomer

Giuseppe Piazzi Giuseppe Piazzi ( , ; 16 July 1746 – 22 July 1826) was an Italian Catholic priest of the Theatine order, mathematician, and astronomer. He established an observatory at Palermo, now the '' Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo – Giuseppe ...

Works

Corti's marble ''Lucifer'' (sometimes titled as ''Satan'') was commissioned by the Count d' Aquila, brother of the former

king of Naples The following is a list of rulers of the Kingdom of Naples, from its first separation from the Kingdom of Sicily to its merger with the same into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Kingdom of Naples (1282–1501) House of Anjou In 1382, the ...

. At the end of the 19th century, a traveler and amateur critic offered this assessment of the work: ''Lucifer'' was reviewed by Francesco dall' Ongaro at rhapsodic length as a worthy representation of the Satanic ideal shared in the literary works of

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...

. Dall' Ongaro found the figure "

androgynous Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics. Androgyny may be expressed with regard to biological sex, gender identity, or gender expression. When ''androgyny'' refers to mixed biological sex characteristics i ...

," in keeping with the theological view that gender came into existence only with the creation of

human beings Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...

and was not a characteristic of

angels In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...

. The sculpture received notice for its "extraordinary vigor." Corti's monument to Cardinal Borromeo was commissioned in 1861 for the plaza of the

Biblioteca Ambrosiana The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, Italy, also housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery. Named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, whose agen ...

. The statue was completed in 1864, and dedicated the following year. The statue of Giuseppe Piazzi, dedicated in 1871, is located in the main plaza of

Ponte in Valtellina Ponte in Valtellina is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Sondrio in the Italian region Lombardy, located about northeast of Milan and about east of Sondrio. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 2,222 and an area of .All de ...

, the astronomer's birthplace.''Guida alla Valtellina ed alle sue acque minerali'' (Sondrio, 1884) p. 23
online.
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Sources

* Clement, Clara Erskine, and Laurence Hutton. ''Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works: A Handbook''. Houghton, Mifflin, 1889, 5th ed., vol. 1, p. 16
online.
*Corna, Andrea. ''Dizionario della storia dell'arte in Italia''. C. & C. Tarantola, 1915, p. 196. * Thieme, Ulrich. ''Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart''. Leipzig, 1912, vol. 7, p. 48
online.

External links

* An 1886

photogravure Photogravure (in French ''héliogravure'') is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained (adding a pattern to the plate) and ...

print depicting ''Lucifer'' from a more startling angle may be viewed (scroll down for larger image) at the

WebCite WebCite was an on-demand archive site, designed to digitally preserve scientific and educationally important material on the web by taking snapshots of Internet contents as they existed at the time when a blogger or a scholar cited or quoted ...

br>archive.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corti, Costantino Year of birth uncertain 1820s births 1873 deaths 19th-century Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors 19th-century Italian male artists