Читать книгу The Museo Vincenzo Vela in Ligornetto - Marc-Joachim Wasmer - Страница 7

Thanks to a colossal sculpture commissioned by the collector Duke Antonio Litta, in 1847 Vela received a grant that enabled him to work in Rome. He had just begun to design the model for this figure, Spartacus, when he decided to fight in the Sonderbund War, siding with General Guillaume-Henri Dufour (portrayed in 1849, II), and in March 1848, participated as a volunteer in the War of Independence fought by the Lombards against Austria, which ended with much blood spilled. On this occasion, the staunch republican earned the friendship and respect of the Milanese as well as the reputation of being a politically engaged artist and patriot.

His marble colossus, sculpted in winter 1849–1850, arrived on cue to mark the definitive demise of the formal canons of classicism (VII, see ill. p. 8). The heroic slave who breaks his chains to die a free man became the symbol of the national uprising. Thus, Vela’s ‘verism‘ championed Italian unification and roused the people – as did the operas of Giuseppe Verdi.