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Title:
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Monument to Carlo Botta
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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Carlo Botta (1766-1837) was an Italian politician, historian, physician and music-lover. Born at S. Giorgio Canavese, he studied medicine at the University of Turin, but was arrested and imprisoned between 1794 and 1795 for conspiracy against the Piedmontese government. During his years of incarceration, he translated Sheridan's A School for Scandal into Italian. Following his release, he emigrated briefly to France. In 1797 he was employed as a surgeon to the French army in Northern Italy, and witnessed many of the important events of the Napoleonic occupation, though he was in Corfu at the moment when the Venetian Republic was handed over to the Austrians, an event which profoundly shocked him. In 1799, Botta participated in the Provisional Piedmontese Government, and after the flight of King Carlo Emanuele IV, he formed part of the republican triumvirate, known as "the government of the three Carlos" (1801). The other two were Carlo Giulio, the anatomist, and Carlo Bossi, the politician. Marochetti's father, Vincenzo, was Secretary General to this triumvirate, and from this time the links between the Botta and Marochetti families remained very strong. In 1804, Carlo Botta went to Paris to perform the function of regional representative for the province of Dora in the Corps Legislatif. Vincenzo followed him there in 1805, shortly after the birth of his first son, Carlo. Because of the part he had played in conspiracies against the ruling dynasty in Piedmont, Botta remained, after the fall of Napoleon, a political exile from Italy. he was, however, granted limited visiting rights to Piedmont by King Carlo Alberto, in 1831. Only in 1874 was legislation put in place, which would allow his ashes to be returned to Italy for burial in the national pantheon in S. Croce in Florence. Botta's most important historical works are History of the American War of Independence (1809), and History of Italy since 1789, published in 1832. Much of the second work was written at the Marochetti family's country house. Over his lifetime, Botta's political views were to mellow. He was to renounce the revolutionary utopianism of his earlier years and to espouse an enlightened reformism, similar to that practised by the Grand Dukes of Tuscany in the post-Napoleonic period. His son, Paul-Emile was an archaeologist, known principally for his excavation of the Assyrian palace at Khorsabad. The monument, standing in the front courtyard of Carlo Botta's birthplace, consists of a tall plinth. At the top, on a square platform supported on the backs of four owls, is a bust of Carlo Botta, crowned with laurels. On the plinth is a relief of a female figure, representing History.
The Municipality of S. Giorgio Canavese decided to erect a monument to Carlo Botta, a year after his death, on the 8th Oct.1838. Contributions came in from various learned and professional societies in Italy. According to Carlo Dionisotti, biographer of Botta, the government opposed the erection of the monument in a public place, a privilege reserved for persons of royal blood. It had therefore to be placed within the courtyard of Botta's birthplace, overlooking the thoroughfare. (C. Dionisotti, Vita di Carlo Botta, Turin , 1867, p.497)
Marochetti, as a young man had not only been extremely close to Botta, but had shared living quarters with him and his sons during the 1820s in the rue de Vaugirard, in Paris. (Vita privata di Carlo Botta. Ragguagli domestici e aneddotisci, raccolti dal su maggior figlio, Scipione, Florence, 1877, p.55) Inspired by this close friendship, he wrote to the committee from Vaux on 15th July 1839, requesting the privilege of creating the monument: "I come, in the name of the friendship with which I was honoured by the celebrated historian to whom you wish to raise a monument, to beg you to confide this work to me. Carlo Botta was a second father to me; it is therefore a duty which is incumbent on me, to attach my name to this pious construction, which must stand witness to the regret and esteem which he has left among us, both as a man and as an author. Do not deprive me...... of the honour which I ask: no other besides myself could bring to the execution of this monument, more of a desire to make it worthy of its object, nor a greater disinterest. The motive which guides me needs no commentary, above all with you..... I dare therefore to hope that you will consider as a right, that which I ask of you as a kindness". (C. Dionisotti, op.cit., p.497)
During his lifetime, Botta had commissioned from Marochetti a statuette of Virgil (C.Dionisotti, op.cit., p.480), and another of the composer Paisiello (C.Botta, Scritti Minore, Biella,1860. pp.65-66), and, either before or after his death Marochetti made a statuette of Botta, seated in a pensive attitude, of which two bronze casts exist today.
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Signature: |
C.Marochetti |
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Material(s): |
Granite
, Bronze
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
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Finish: |
- |
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Technique: |
Cast |
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Genre: |
Unassigned
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Location: |
S.Giorgio Canavese, , , Italy
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1841 |
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Height: |
0 metres |
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Width: |
0 metres |
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Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
1952 |
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Acc. No.: |
1952 |
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Col. No.: |
1952 |
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Number of views: |
4479 |
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