Giulio Monteverde

Giulio Monteverde (8 October 1837 – 3 October 1917) was an Italian sculptor, teacher and senator of the Kingdom of Italy.

Biography Giulio Monteverde was born in Bistagno, in Piedmont. He began his artistic training as an apprentice woodcarver and first worked as a carver, producing religious works including crucifixes. In 1857 he moved to Genoa, where he attended the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti while continuing to work as a woodcarver. At the Accademia Ligustica he studied under Santo Varni. In 1865, after winning the Pensione Durazzo, he moved to Rome for further study.

Monteverde’s early reputation was established through works inspired by childhood, scientific progress and modern civic subjects, including Bambini che giocano con il gatto, Colombo giovinetto, Genio di Franklin and Jenner vaccinating his son against smallpox. thumb Jenner vaccinating his son against smallpox, sculpture by Giulio Monteverde.

These works placed him among the leading Italian sculptors of the later nineteenth century, associated with naturalism and bourgeois realism. Colombo giovinetto won a gold medal at the first National Exhibition of Fine Arts in Parma in 1870, while Genio di Franklin won a silver medal at the Milan Exhibition in 1872. Jenner vaccinating his son against smallpox, completed in plaster in 1873, won a gold medal at the Vienna Universal Exposition of the same year and brought Monteverde wide critical success.

In 1877, Monteverde made a portrait bust of the Sicilian engraver and painter Francesco Di Bartolo. When he came to Catania in 1882 for the inauguration of his Monument to Vincenzo Bellini in Piazza Stesicoro, Monteverde was hosted by Di Bartolo at his villa in Cibali, Catania. thumb

In 1878 he was made an Officer of the Legion of Honour. In the same year, the marble version of Jenner vaccinating his son against smallpox was exhibited with success at the Paris Universal Exposition, where Monteverde was also present as a juror.

Monteverde also became a public figure, serving on artistic commissions and taking part in official cultural life. On 26 January 1889 he was appointed a senator of the Kingdom of Italy. In his later career he produced major funerary and symbolic works, while retaining the naturalist character for which he was known.

He died in Rome on 3 October 1917.