Enrico Pazzi 1865 Dante Alighieri Statue vor Santa Croce Florenz-1

The Statue of Dante Alighieri ( it, Monumento a Dante Alighieri) is a

monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, his ...

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

in Piazza Santa Croce, outside the

Basilica of Santa Croce The (Italian for 'Basilica of the Holy Cross') is the principal Franciscan church in Florence, Italy, and a minor basilica of the Roman Catholic Church. It is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about 800 meters south-east of the Duomo. The ...

, 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 ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Erected in 1865, it is the work of the sculptor

Enrico Pazzi Enrico Pazzi (20 June 1818 – 27 March 1899) was an Italian sculptor, mainly active in Florence, Italy. He is known for his '' Monument to Dante'' (1857-1865) in the Piazza Santa Croce, Florence, and for the Prince Mihailo Monument in the cente ...

History

In the early 1850s, a project for a statue of Dante in a piazza in

Ravenna Ravenna ( , , also ; rgn, Ravèna) is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. It was the capital city of the Western Roman Empire from 408 until its collapse in 476. It then served as the cap ...

was declined. Pazzi subsisted on small private projects for tomb monuments and house decorations. He completed for

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 ...

a commission for a nativity scene, destined for the Signora Bianchi of Siena; however, he had difficulty in getting paid. In 1857–1859, a move was made to complete the Dante statue, but now for Florence. The patriotic Pazzi recalls an unfortunate episode when

Prince Leopold, Count of Syracuse Prince Leopold of the Two Sicilies (22 May 1813, in Palermo – 4 December 1860, in Pisa) was a House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, prince of the Two Sicilies and was known as the Count of Syracuse. Life Leopold was the third son of Francis I of the ...

(brother of the King of Naples) visited the studio accompanied by the interior minister of

Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold II( it, Leopoldo Giovanni Giuseppe Francesco Ferdinando Carlo, german: Leopold Johann Joseph Franz Ferdinand Karl, English: ''Leopold John Joseph Francis Ferdinand Charles''. (3 October 1797 – 29 January 1870) was Grand Duke of Tusc ...

. The visiting Prince inquired why Dante was surrounded by beasts. Pazzi indicated that the lions were the '' Marzocchi'', long a symbol of

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Muge ...

Florence. However, when asked why the eagle did not have a double head, the symbol of the Habsburg dynasty, Pazzi impertinently replied that this was a

Roman eagle An ''aquila'' (, "eagle") was a prominent symbol used in ancient Rome, especially as the standard of a Roman legion. A legionary known as an ''aquilifer'', the "eagle-bearer", carried this standard. Each legion carried one eagle. The eagle had ...

, arising from the ashes of the fallen

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

. With this, the retinue left. It would be nearly half a decade before Pazzi's statue was erected in the piazza. The statue was erected in 1865 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of Dante's birth. The pedestal was designed by Luigi del Sarto. The creation of a statue of a famous Florentine by a sculptor from Ravenna caused some rumblings. Florence and Ravenna had for years disputed who was to hold the remains of Dante: his native city or the city of his exile. The church of Santa Croce, which stands on the same piazza as this statue, has an elaborate but empty tomb monument to the poet. The pedestal has four ''Marzocco'' lions with shields holding the names of minor works by Dante and the symbols of various Italian cities who contributed to the cost of the sculpture. The statue initially placed in the center of the Piazza was moved after the flood of November 1966 to a position in front of the flank of the façade of the basilica.

References

External links

The Dante statue
Florentine, Chipping away at the Italian language, Deirdre Pirro, JANUARY 27, 2011 {{Florence landmarks, state=expanded

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

Outdoor sculptures in Florence Enrico Pazzi Cultural depictions of Dante Alighieri

Sculptures of men in Italy Sculptures of eagles Sculptures of lions Statues in Italy

History

See also

References

External links