Girolamo Masini
Encyclopedia
Biography
He was born in FlorenceFlorence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, where he studied with Florentine sculptor Aristodemo Costoli
Aristodemo Costoli
Aristodemo Costoli was an Italian sculptor who spent his entire career in the city of Florence. His students included Girolamo Masini, Augusto Rivalta and his son Leopoldo Costoli.-References:...
. Masini's most prominently-sited work is the bronze statue of Cola di Rienzi (1877) on the left of the stairs leading to the Campidoglio, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Contemporary bronze reductions of it were made.
Masini, a minor member of the Romantic realists
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
of the generation that reacted to the cool Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
of Canova
Antonio Canova
Antonio Canova was an Italian sculptor from the Republic of Venice who became famous for his marble sculptures that delicately rendered nude flesh...
, taught at the Accademia di San Luca
Accademia di San Luca
The Accademia di San Luca, was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome, under the directorship of Federico Zuccari, with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. Other founders included Girolamo...
, Rome, where among his pupils were Ernesto Biondi
Ernesto Biondi
Ernesto Biondi was an Italian sculptor who won the grand prix at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In 1905 he sued the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art for breach of contract after they refused to display his Saturnalia...
and Attilio Piccirilli
Attilio Piccirilli
Attilio Piccirilli was an American sculptor.Born in the province of Massa-Carrara, Italy, he was educated at the Accademia di San Luca of Rome.-Life and career:...
, later of New York.
A marble seated Ruth exhibits the realist attention to minor details and the sentimental aura of Masini's style. Another of his works, Fabiola is in the Museum of Modern Art in Rome.
Masini exhibited at the Esposizione Internazionale (1874) in Rome. The same year he finished for the comune of Gropello Cairoli (province of Pavia
Province of Pavia
The Province of Pavia is a province in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. Pavia is the capital.It has an area of 2,965 km², and a total population of 493,753...
) a standing figure of donna Adelaide Bono Cairoli, mother of five patriot sons, memorialized by the comune as five columns round a fountain.
In Hamburg, Masini executed the mourning female figure on the Zimmer tomb at Ohlsdorf Main Cemetery
Ohlsdorf Cemetery
-External links:* *...
(Hauptfriedhof Ohlsdorf) http://www.fof-ohlsdorf.de/thema/2004/85s16_schoenheit.htm.
Masini died in Florence in 1885.