The Sculptor's Chisel
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PAGANI , Luigi. - Son of Bortolo and Barbara Monticelli, was born in Bergamo on 19 December 1829 in the parish of S. Alessandro in Colonna, where he was baptized on 21 December of the same year with the name Amadio Luigi.
In 1850 he asked to be admitted to the drawing classes at the Accademia Carrara di Bergamo. In 1852 he exhibited at the Academy a series of works as a plasticator. In 1853 he applied for admission to the school year 1853-54 as a supernumerary figure student at the same institution; between 1853 and 1855 he made several sculptures for the altars and the choir of the church of S. Anna in Bergamo.
Since 1854 his presence is documented at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, where he attended the sculpture school of Benedetto Cacciatori. At the end of the first year of study he won the Sanquirico prize for the School of Figure Elements. Also in 1854 he exhibited some modeled works at the Accademia Carrara. In 1856 he obtained access to the second class competition for the 'isolated plastic statue' (the first prize was won by Francesco Barzaghi) and continued his work as a sculptor in Bergamo, where he collaborated in the restoration of the baptistery of the cathedral of S. Maria Maggiore led by the architect Raffaele Dalpino, with some white marble statues to replace the lost ones, executed a bust of the Austrian emperor Francesco Giuseppe, acquired by the Accademia Carrara (where it is still preserved), and exhibited at the same Academy the mystical Rose bas-relief. He was rewarded again in Brera in 1857 for the competitions related to the 'copy of plastic drapery', on equal merit with Barzaghi, and for the 'isolated plastic statue'. In the same year he exhibited numerous works (statues and bas-reliefs) at the Accademia Carrara: a Redeemer, commissioned for the church of Entratico, a S. Cristoforo , the bust of Francesco Giuseppe , Rosa mystic.
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He participated in the exhibition of Brera in 1859 with the bronze snake , a "great merit" bas-relief ( Il Cicerone in the halls of Brera , 1859, p.43). In 1861 he won the first prize of the government institution for plaster sculpture Jesus in the garden, deposited at the Gallery of Modern Art in Milan in 1902.
In 1863 he presented to Brera four figures modeled in bas-relief representing the three theological Virtues and Temperance , performed for the drum of the church of the Graces of Bergamo, and the bas-relief depicting the Istoria commissioned him for the cenotaph of cardinal Angelo Mai in the parish church of Schilpario.
At the same monument worked the sculptors Giovanni Benzoni, for the bust of the cardinal, and the bergamasco Andrea Galletti, for the ornamental parts; with the latter Pagani had already collaborated during the works for the church of S. Anna in Bergamo.
The following year he exhibited in Brera «fourteen bas-reliefs [in stucco] for the Via Crucis station to be placed in the chapel of the Ss. Crucifix which is being built next to the cathedral of Bergamo» ( Exposition , 1864, p.79) and a bust of the Colonel Francesco Nullo , preserved today at the Historical Museum of Bergamo.
In 1865 he presented in Brera the marble statue Torquato Tasso at the court of the Duke of Ferrara and at the Oporto International Exposition the group The exile and the figure Moses child , returning to the list of Italian sculptors who received a first class award. In 1866 he was commissioned by the Fabbriceria del Duomo of Milan for the execution of the statue of St. Claudius stonemason , destined for the fourth order of the large window facing south of the southern sacristy, where it still stands today.
Of the work, judged in 1867 by the commission of testing as "commendably performed" (Milan, Archives of the Venerable Factory of the Milan Cathedral, Cathedral Works , Sculpture , 1866-67, folder No. 44) and paid for 1500 Italian lire, is preserved the plaster model in the Cathedral Museum.
Also in 1867 he executed an angel to a greater size than natural for the church of Caprino, four angels in scagliola for the church of the Graces of Bergamo and the statuette Le pauvre fornaretto , presented at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. In the same year he was among the sculptors invited to the realization of the plaster statues destined to adorn the interior of the Vittorio Emanuele gallery (soon removed because of their rapid deterioration); the figure assigned to Pagani was that of Marco Polo .
Pagani continued to participate systematically in the exhibitions of Brera, with the works: Peasant bride of the contours of Bergamo (1866, bust) ; Eleonora duchessa d'Este (1867, bust); Moses in the waters (1868, life-size putto); The first communion (1868, bust from life); Pledge of love (1869, female figure); The mask toilet (1870, bust); Flowers of May (1870, bust); Luisa Sanfelice of Naples (1870, bust, subject repurposed in 1871 and 1872, this last version, signed and dated, is now kept at the Gallery of Modern Art in Milan); Selika and Nelusko (1871, busts in marble and bronze, characters of the work L'africaine ); Luciano Manara (1872, plaster bust, model for a sculpture in marble then realized by Pagani and inaugurated in Antignate in 1873); The vivandière of Marina (1873, bust, a sculpture of this subject entered the collections of the Troyes Museum in 1889); Soap bubbles, a group of real cherubs. Pompeian idyll (1874); She's dead!!! (1874, figure of a child from life); Love lurking, laying on flowers (1875, natural figure, subject repurposed in 1881); bust of Don Francesco Novi (1875, commissioned by the citizens of Chiavenna); Psyche contemplating Cupid (1875, figure from life); La Peri (1876, life-size statue, inspired by the poem by Thomas Moore's Paradise and the Peri ); The bride (Genoese costume) (1876, bust); St. Philip and s. Giacomo (1876, statues larger than the size for the cathedral of Bergamo); plaster model of the funeral monument for the Bertolla family (1879; the work was carried out in the same year and placed in the cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa); plaster model of the monument to the heroes of Brescia who fell in the Ten Days of 1849 and the battles of Solferino and San Martino in 1859 (1879, in the same year the marble and bronze monument was inaugurated in the Brescia cemetery of Brescia); Oriental costume (1880, bust, reproposed in 1881); The first friend (1881, statuette); The models of the artist (1881, small group, already proposed in 1878 at the Paris Universal Exposition); SM Vittorio Emanuele (1881, bust); Lombard peasant (1881, bust); Portrait of the master Donizetti (1887, plaster statue).
Beginning in 1870, he intensified his participation in other Italian and foreign exhibition events, with subjects already presented at the Milanese exhibitions; unpublished works presented instead at the Accademia Carrara ( La modestia , 1870), in Naples ( La Sibilla and Impressions of a sad page , 1877) and again in Bergamo ( Giovanni Morelli , plaster bust, and Il concittadino Paleocapa , model of monument, 1892). In addition to the aforementioned events of 1865 and Paris in 1867 and 1878 in Oporto, he exhibited at the Royal Academy of London in 1872 at the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts annual exhibition in 1876 at the Salon de la Societe des Artistes. français in Paris in 1883 and at the Nice International Exhibition of 1884.
He made the funeral monument of the bishop of Bergamo Luigi Speranza (deceased in 1879), destined for the cemetery of Valtesse and then transferred to the scurolo of the cathedral of Bergamo, and the bust for the cenotaph of the bishop in the cemetery of Piario. In the eighties he collaborated with Barzaghi on the construction of the monuments to Vittorio Emanuele II: in Lodi (the plaster model of the sovereign, by Barzaghi, is now preserved in the Modern Art Gallery of Milan), in Bergamo and in Genoa; the first two monuments were inaugurated in 1884, the third in 1886.
L. Chirtani (pseudonym of Luigi Archinti, in The Italian illustration , 1886, pp. 44 s.), On the occasion of the inauguration of the monument of Genoa, indicates Pagani as the main architect of the "modeling of the horse".
From the catalogs of the exhibitions of Brera Pagani is a knight of the Crown of the Kingdom of Italy at least since 1880; from the same year he was honorary member of the Milanese Academy, until at least 1892. In 1890 he was appointed member of the University of Sciences, Letters and Arts of Bergamo.
In 1888 the Carrara Academy of Bergamo bought the busts of the painters Enrico Scuri and Francesco Coghetti directly from the artist, which are still kept in this institution. In 1891 he executed the bust of Vittore Tasca , now at the Historical Museum of Bergamo. For the current facade of the church of St. Bartholomew, in the same city, built starting in 1897, he made two bas-reliefs depicting the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew and that of St. Stephen .
In June 1904 Pagani, unmarried, made an application for admission to the Pio Albergo Trivulzio in Milan, then in via Signora 10, where he entered on 19 September and died on 21 October 1905. Three days later he was announced in the pages of Corriere della Sera .
There are few critical references to the work of Pagani. Rossi (1996, p.173) recognizes in the sculptor a central presence "to the understanding of the cultural developments of the Carrara Academy in the nineteenth century", in which a school of sculpture was never established. In Nicodemi and Bezzola (1938, p 188) the fidelity to the style of maestro Benedetto Cacciatori, defined by Zanchetti (1995, p.50) "extreme representative of an artistic culture by now at sunset", is emphasized, that of the classicist academy of early nineteenth century. Bossaglia and Di Giovanni (1977, pp. 40 s.) Observe the persistence of a "scholastic academy", with reference to the aforementioned statue of St. Claudius stonemason , but also underline, in a more general vision of Pagani's artistic path, the good capacity as a portraitist and attention to the real data, an aspect that is also reaffirmed by Vicario (1994, p.776, 1995, p.121), together with the great technical virtuosity. These last elements, together with the predilection for a certain type of subjects, make it possible to place it fully among the representatives of what was defined by its contemporaries as the 'School of Milan' (Tedeschi, 1995).
Sources and Bibles: Bergamo, Carrara Academy, Archive, School careers , f. personal exhibition by Luigi Pagani, 1850-53; Milan, Martinitt Museum and Stelline, Historical Archives, PAT-Men 1893/1909, Registry of inhalation at the Pio Albergo Trivulzio in Milan , n. 1356; The Cicero in the rooms of Brera or a brief illustration of the works on display in the rooms of the Royal Academy of Milan in 1859 , Milan 1859, p. 43; Exhibition of fine arts in the galleries of the National Palace of Brera in 1864 , Milan 1864, p. 79; V. Pagnoncelli, Bergamo or both News patrie, historical-artistic-literary Almanac for the year 1864 , Bergamo 1864, pp. 145 s .; Id., Bergamo or both News patrie, historical-artistic-literary almanac for the year 1867 , Bergamo 1867, pp. 97 s .; Provincial Gazette of Bergamo , 22 November 1884; Ibid. , November 24, 1884; The Italian illustration , 18 July 1886, pp. 42-45, 56; P. Locatelli, Illustri bergamaschi. Critical-biographical studies , III, Intarsiators, architects and sculptors , Bergamo 1879, pp. 208 s .; Il Corriere della Sera , October 24, 1905; A. De Gubernatis, Dictionary of Living Italian Artists. Painters, sculptors and architects , Milan 1906, p. 341; G. Nicodemi - M. Bezzola, The Modern Art Gallery , III, The Sculptures , Milan 1938, p. 188; L. Caramel - C. Pirovano, Gallery of modern art. Works of the nineteenth century , Milan 1975, pp. 21, 654 s .; A. Gualandris, Monuments and columns of Bergamo , Bergamo 1976, p. 43; Romantic and floral sculpture in the cathedral of Milan , edited by R. Bossaglia - M. Di Giovanni (catalog), Milan 1977, pp. 40 s .; B. Belotti, History of Bergamo and Bergamo , VIII, Bergamo 1989, p. 226; A. Panzetta, PL , in the Dictionary of Italian sculptors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries , I, Turin 1994, p. 202; V. Vicar, PL , in Italian sculptors. From neoclassicism to liberty , II, Lodi 1994, pp. 773-776; F. Rossi, Accademia Carrara , IV, Catalog of paintings 19 , Cinisello Balsamo 1995, pp. 86 s .; F. Tedeschi, The sculpture of the "School of Milan" through international exhibitions (1851-1878) and criticism , in Two centuries of sculpture , Milan 1995, pp. 64-80 passim ; G. Zanchetti, Benedetto Cacciatori and the decline of academic classicism , pp. 50-63 passim ; V. Vicar, The Brescian sculpture of the nineteenth and early twentieth century , Spino d'Adda 1995, p. 121; F. Rea, LP , in Masters and artists. 200 years of the Carrara Academy , curated by F. Rossi (catalog, Bergamo), Milan 1996, p. 312; F. Rossi, In memory of Daniele Riva , ibid. , pp. 172-195, in particular pp. 173 s .; I'm going to Brera. Artists, works, genres, buyers in the 800 exhibitions of the Accademia di Brera , curated by R. Ferrari, Brescia 2008; U. Thieme - F. Becker, Künstlerlexikon , XXVI, p. 138.
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