(b Bistagno, nr Alessandria, 8 Oct 1837; d Rome, 3 Oct 1917). Italian sculptor. He attended the Accademia Ligustica (1862–5) in Genoa, studying under the guidance of Santo Varni (1807–85), while at the same time working for a cabinetmaker. He won the Pensionato Artistico Triennale and in 1865 went to Rome, where he had immediate success with groups and single figures that were sculpted in a Romantic–Realist style, while also following academic principles. In 1874 he began teaching at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. His fame was established above all by two works: the Youth of Christopher Columbus (1870; Genoa, Gal. A. Mod.) and Edward Jenner Injecting the Vaccine into his Son (1873; Genoa, Gal. Pal. Bianco). In the latter work the rather static figure of the doctor is contrasted with the free and dynamic form of the child, thus creating a remarkable plastic effect that was often repeated. Monteverde’s major work, however, was such celebratory sculpture as the Genius of Benjamin Franklin (1871; Rome, Piazza dell’Indipendenza), Victor-Emanuel II (1880; Bologna, Giardini Margherita) and Vincenzo Bellini (1893; Catania, Piazza Stesicoro). He also obtained numerous commissions from South American countries for monuments celebrating their national heroes and executed a remarkable series of groups and figures for funerary monuments in the cemeteries of Rome, Genoa and Turin. The sculptor also took part in the realization of the monument to Victor-Emanuel II (1885–1911) in Rome: he created the colossal group in gilded bronze depicting Thought (1910–11), placed at the foot of the great stairway. The symbolic theme of this work, however, was foreign to the artist’s mentality and the result was weak, lacking expressive or allegorical force; it was criticized adversely, even at the time of its installation.

• Monteverde, Giulio
  • Matte, Rebeca
  • Tomb, §VI, 4: Western world, after c 1780