Bronze sculpture of Italian poet and philosoph Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321) by Italian sculptor Alfredo ANGELONI (1883 Lucca -1953 Viareggio).

He was born on November 29, 1883 in Lucca, where he attended the Institute of Fine Arts, under the guidance of the sculptor Arnaldo Fazzi, and in 1903 he obtained his diploma. He then enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he was a pupil of Raffaello Romanelli and later attended, thanks to a scholarship, a specialization course in Milan, at the Brera Academy. Married to Pia Nuti, with whom he has two daughters, Giovanna and Wally, he spends his life almost continuously in Lucca. At the turn of the 1910s he was part of the "Pro Arte Lucensi" committee, together with his colleagues Giuseppe Lunardi and Arturo Chelini, an association created with the aim of organizing exhibitions and promoting contemporary art from Lucca. In 1947 he decided to move to Viareggio, where he died on March 12, 1953. Among the acknowledgments received in 1905, the prize obtained in the context of the "Art Exhibition" in Florence and the appointment as Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy, honor conferred on him in 1921. After his death, the city of Lucca dedicated a retrospective to him, set up at Villa Bottini in 1956. Most of his artistic activity, which took place over fifty years, was concentrated in the creation of funerary works and in the creation of some monuments to the fallen of the First World War; the most important and well-known is undoubtedly that of Lucca in the square in front of Porta San Pietro, inaugurated in 1930 in the presence of the King; we also mention those of Altopascio, San Pietro a Vico, Massarosa, Fornoli, Segromigno, Bagni di Lucca, Villa Basilica, Casabasciana, as well as those of Gambolo, in the province of Pavia, and Rome. In the capital he also created a large sculpture entitled "Goddess Rome", located in the atrium of the Ostiense station, unfortunately destroyed during the Second World War. Numerous funerary creations, both of individual monuments and chapels, mainly made in the Camposanto of Lucca (among which we mention the chapel of the Bernardini family and the Lenzi family, the chapels of Paolo and Modesto Giurlani, the funeral monument of Dario Recanati, the one for Nina Giovannini born Canale, the statue of the Thinker on the tomb of Armando Mungai, the Pietà for the tombs of Alberto Paoli, Umberto Rocchi Burlamacchi, Ada Cavalieri Lollusa and the Milani-Sbragia spouses, the bronze bust of Andrea Roberti, the tomb by Bianca Niccoli, by Giulia and Gina Panconesi, by Lola Lera and the Piagentini family, by Giovanni Favilla and Renata Parducci in Politi, by Angela and Elvira Vannucchi), of Barga (author of the bronzes of the Pieroni chapel) and in that of Viareggio . He also executed the commemorative works dedicated to Leonida Bissolati (Rome), Antonio Berlese (San Vincenzo, Livorno), Ugo Brilli (Viareggio), Simòn Bolìvar (Maracay, Venezuela), Ulisse Bartoli (Lucca). Among the civil works we mention the Hymn to Life, formerly placed in the courtyard of the psychiatric hospital of Lucca, the decoration of Palazzo Giorgi (Lucca, Piazza Curtatone) and the heads of soldiers with the helmet of the Casa del Mutilato, building designed by the architect Italo Baccelli in 1932. Gilberto Bedini attributes to him the sculptural decoration of the window of the Venus Perfumery, in Via Fillungo in Lucca. A large collection of works and documents, bequeathed by his daughter Wally, is kept in the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Viareggio. Wally, who graduated in painting at the "A. Passaglia" Institute, exhibited together with her father in 1931 on the occasion of the II Trade Union Exhibition of Lucchesia and and in 1942 as part of the Art Exhibition for the benefit of the Armed Forces.

Literature: on -line : http://artistilucchesi.fondazioneragghianti.it/artisti_dettaglio.php?id_artista=82&np=&gruppo=1

Technique: bronze , brown patina, stone base.

Inscription: signed : Sc ( sculptured) Angeloni.

Measurements: total with base 30 cm (11 2/3”)

Condition: very good.