Risorgimento in bronzo nella Sicilia occidentale

Abstract

After 1861 the demand for artistic bronzes in western Sicily is related to the need to celebrate recent historical events. They were erected in places that were the scene of the initial stages of the “Expedition of the Thousand”, such as the landing at Marsala, the proclamation of the dictatorship at Salemi, the victorious battle of Calatafimi, and the insurrection of Palermo. I am referring to the equestrian monument to Vittorio Emanuele II by Benedetto Civiletti and to Giuseppe Garibaldi by Vincenzo Ragusa in Palermo; to the two high-reliefs by Giovanni Battista Tassara in the monument-ossuary in Pianto Romano; to the bust of Garibaldi by Antonio Ugo in Calatafimi as well as to the statuary group Sicily rejoining the Mother Country in Palermo. These bronze works were all cast in foundries outside Sicily. The only exception in this context was Mario Rutelli’s Fonderia Artistica Siciliana and the bronzes cast there.