Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

You may wish to see first a page on the monuments of Villa Borghese with a view of La Fortezzuola, the building which houses Museo Pietro Canonica and of a statue outside it.

Casa e Museo Pietro Canonica: garden with a fine Renaissance well

General characteristics of more recent Italian sculpture.
Few of the more prominent contemporary sculptors of Italy have attained anything like international importance. Those who have a European reputation, are Gemito, Bistolfi, Canonica, and Medardo Rosso. (..) There has been a greater passion for monuments, if possible, than elsewhere, each town receiving its memorial to Victor Emmanuel II and Garibaldi, if not also to such other protagonists of the Risorgimento as Mazzini and Cavour; but only a very small number of these have even secondary significance. (..) A young sculptor of Turin, Pietro Canonica (born 1869) has distinguished himself in the sphere of careful and quiet analysis of psychological complexes, whether in ideal subjects or in portraits. (..) Occasionally (..) he passes on to the greater intensity of expression found in baroque portraits, even employing the decorative draperies of the later period. It is his practice to use the bust rather than the whole figure in his monuments.
Chandler Rathfon Post - A History of European and American Sculpture - 1921

Monument to King Victor Emmanuel II: statue of the Tyrrhenian Sea by Pietro Canonica

In 1892, when he was already famous, Canonica was invited to Rome to be a member of the Committee for the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II, contributing a sketch. In 1908 he produced the large statue of the Tyrrhenian Sea which today stands at the foot of the steps leading up to the monument. As in other examples of allegory he emphasized the expressiveness of faces and gestures, displaying a particularly accomplished technique. Canonica brought together his great talent as an academic sculptor and his strong interest in the conservation of the national artistic heritage. He was appointed Senator of the Italian Kingdom for high artistic merit. In 1922 he moved permanently to Rome. In 1926 he pledged his works to the City of Rome and was allowed to live in the Fortezzuola of Villa Borghese, which he restored and where he worked until his death in 1959.

(left) Studio of the artist; (right) wooden ceiling of the room with the heraldic symbols of the Borghese (eagle and dragon) and of the Aldobrandini (eight-pointed star)

The Studio has been maintained as it was when the artist was working there. The room is part of the building which once belonged to the Borghese family. Its ceiling is original and was not restored by the sculptor; it is made of wooden panels and was painted around the years 1833-39, at the initiative of Francesco Borghese Aldobrandini, brother of Prince Camillo Borghese.
The private apartment where Pietro Canonica lived was opened to the public in 1988 and became part of the museum's itinerary after the death of Maria Assunta Riggio Canonica, the artist's second wife, who continued to live in the house after the sculptor's death.

(above) 1581 mantlepiece in the Room of the Fireplace; Canonica brought it from a villa he had near Vetralla; (below) tools of Canonica at his death in the Studio

In the centre of the Studio is a table with the tools Canonica used for his work, still dirty with pieces of plaster and clay. The Room of the Fireplace is so called because of its monumental fireplace. In this room Canonica received his guests before leading them to nearby Studio.

Reception Room or Room of the Fireplace

The Reception Room was fitted by Canonica with furniture of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries which he bought on the antiquarian market. In his youth he studied the sculptors of the Renaissance and later on he was intrigued by some aspects of Baroque sculpture.

(left) Self-portrait (1952); (right) 1918 title page of the opera "The Bride of Corinth" after a 1797 ballad by J. W. Goethe

Among the paintings on display in the Reception Room are a portrait and a self-portrait by the artist. Also displayed here are two watercolour sketches for title page of the score and for the scenography of The Bride of Corinth (1918) and Medea (1953), musical works by Pietro Canonica (who also oversaw the scenography). He was a music lover and a composer in his own right. His operas were politely praised at the time, but they soon fell out of repertory.

(left) Model for the statue of Pope Benedict XV; (right) marble bust of Pope Pius XII (1939)

Canonica was highly regarded in Italian Catholic circles and in 1928 he executed the statue of Pope Benedict XV, bareheaded and on his knees, for the funerary monument in S. Pietro. In 1936 he made a large statue portraying St. John Bosco which was placed in a niche inside S. Pietro. During the Fascist period he often worked at monuments to the fallen of WWI, especially those of the Alpine regiments. His artistic merits were recognized also by the Italian Republic and in 1950 he was appointed Senatore a vita (Senator for life), one of the five members of the Senate who are chosen by the President of the Republic.

Marble statues: (left) The Digger (1910), it looks as if it was an ancient statue returned to light after centuries; (right) Modesty or Surprise 1920 replica of an 1893 statue

A sculptor of the late XIXth century received three types of commissions: for family funerary monuments, for monuments to heroes and other great personages and for portraits. Canonica excelled in all these fields, but unlike other sculptors of his time, e.g. Hendrik Christian Andersen, his production of nudes is rather limited and the bodies are depicted without muscular excesses and in rather chaste postures.

Busts of Italian ladies: (left) actress Lyda Borelli (1920) wife of Vittorio Cini, an industrialist and politician; (centre) Donna Franca Jacona Florio (1904), wife of Ignazio Florio Jr. owner of the Marsala Florio Winery (she was known as the Queen of Palermo); (right) Princess Emily Pelham Clinton Doria Pamphilj (1920)

The busts portraying Italian noblewomen are perhaps the finest works by Canonica which are on display at the museum. The image used as background for this page shows a 1904 model for a portrait of Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII.

Models for monuments to the Russian Emperors: (left) bust of Emperor Nicholas II (1910); (right) panel celebrating the improvements in literacy of the Russian peasants for the pedestal of a bronze monument to Emperor Alexander III (1912-1914)

Canonica acquired such a celebrity that in 1908 he was asked to visit St. Petersburg and he was commissioned some portraits and monuments by the Russian Imperial family. The models at the museum are of particular interest because the originals were destroyed, lost or not erected as a consequence of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Main exhibition hall

This is the main exhibition hall. It displays models for large scale monuments which Canonica made to celebrate post-WWI leaders including Faysal I, King of Iraq, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.

Models for monuments celebrating the Turkish Republic: (left) "Mustafa Kemal leading his troops at the Battle of Sakariya" at Taksim square at Istanbul (1928); (right) "The Conquest of Izmir" (1932)

Other houses worth a visit:
Hendrik Christian Andersen
Blanceflor Boncompagni Ludovisi
Isa and Giorgio De Chirico
Mario Praz
Keats-Shelley
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's