Giuseppe Bernardi (24 March 1694 in Pagnano – 22 February 1773 in Venice), also called Torretto, was a prominent mid-18th-century Italian sculptor. He is also known as a carver of intaglios and as the first teacher of Neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova. His father was Sebastiano Bernardi whose works include the statues of the park of the

Villa Manin Villa Manin at Passariano is a Venetian villa located in Passariano of Codroipo, province of Udine, northern Italy. It was the residence of the last Doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin. Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine de Beauharnais lived there for ...

di Passariano (

Udine Udine ( , ; fur, Udin; la, Utinum) is a city and ''comune'' in north-eastern Italy, in the middle of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic Sea and the Alps (''Alpi Carniche''). Its population was 100,514 in 2012, 176,000 with t ...

) and of the

Prato della Valle Prato della Valle (''Prà deła Vałe'' in Venetian) is a 90,000-square-meter elliptical square in Padova, Italy. It is the largest square in Italy, Lionello Puppi, Giuseppe Toffanin. Guida di Padova. ''Arte e storia tra vie e piazze.'' Trie ...

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

. His mother, Cecilia Torretto, was sister to the sculptor Giuseppe Torretto and Bernardi took the nickname "il Torretto" as a child in honor of his uncle.

Career

Bernardi learned his craft from his maternal uncle whose workshop he later inherited. He worked on both small and large projects, and documents from his workshop indicate that he was quite prolific, taking on numerous projects at a time. Beginning in the 1730s, he was involved with the

Santa Maria della Fava Santa Maria della Fava, also originally known as Santa Maria della Consolazione, is an ancient Roman Catholic church in the sestiere of Castello in Venice, Italy. The suffix of ''della Fava'' (of the bean) attributed to the church, bridge and pia ...

sculptural project which took him several decades to complete. He was commissioned to sculpt eight, over-lifesized marble statues of the four Evangelists and the four Western Fathers of the Church. Among Bernardi's students was Antonio Canova. Recognising Canova's talent, Bernardi consented to he and Canova moving to another studio, in Venice. The latter was inherited by his grandchild

Giovanni Ferrari Giovanni Ferrari (; 6 December 1907 – 2 December 1982) was an Italian footballer who played as an attacking midfielder/inside forward on the left. He is regarded as one of the best players of his generation, one of Italy's best ever players, ...

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernardi 1694 births 1773 deaths 18th-century Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors 18th-century Italian male artists