Pio Fedi
Artist: Pio Fedi (Viterbo 1818 - Florence 1892)
Title: Monumental Tomb of Giovan Battista Niccolini (1782-1861)
Date: 1870-1876 (sculpture); 1883 (base)
Material and tecnique: white Carrara marble, grey Bardiglio marble; brass
Dimensions: 348 x 170 x 145 cm (sculpture); h 266 (base)
Inscription: "PIO FEDI IMMAGINÒ E SCOLPÌ"
Position: Basilica of Santa Croce, inner façade
The monument to poet, playwright and patriot Giovan Battista Niccolini (1782–1861) is the work of Pio Fedi, one of the leading sculptors of his day. Fedi had studied under Niccolini at the Accademia and was moved to honour his memory with a monument, while Florence City Council also worked to ensure that Santa Croce could become the poet's last resting place. The monument had a troubled gestation, however, and it was decided – against the artist's advice – to place it on the inner façade, demolishing an existing altar in the process.
A plaster model was ready by 1872 but the monument was not finished before 1876, and it was only inaugurated in 1883 in the course of a ceremony attended by numerous citizens, politicians and intellectuals of the time in whose eyes Niccolini's work embodied the deepest ideals of the Risorgimento.
Pio Fedi, detail of the Monumental Tomb of Giovan Battista Niccolini, 1870-6. Basilica of Santa Croce, inner façade
The allegorical figure of the Freedom of Poetry, of classical inspiration, holds a broken chain in her hand symbolising the demand for freedom of thought, while her right foot tramples on a fragment of it. In her other hand she holds a laurel wreath and a lyre resting on a pile of books written by Niccolini, a portrait of whom sits in a medallion adorning the urn, while the signature "Pio Fedi immaginò e scolpì" ["Pio Fedi designed and carved"] is on the base.
Pio Fedi, The Freedom of Poetry, detail of the Monumental Tomb of Giovan Battista Niccolini, 1870-6. Basilica of Santa Croce, inner façade
There is a clear echo here of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) on Liberty Island in New York. In fact, Fedi's statue may well have served as a source of inspiration for Batholdi who created his work between 1877 and 1886, after a trip to Italy in 1875–6 in the course of which he may well have seen a version of Niccolini's monument. The most surprising similarity is in the subject matter, the personification of Liberty. In Fedi's version the sculpture symbolises the individual artist's freedom of thought and creativity, while in Bartholdi's it embodies the freedom of the American nation.