Phd in HISTORY OF ART

Thesis title: Ettore Ferrari scultore (1845-1929)

The following text aims to provide the most accurate possible reconstruction of Ettore Ferrari’s activity as a sculptor. Considered among the most influential and renowned artists of post-Unification Italy, Ferrari still lacks a systematic and comprehensive monographic study. In the present work, an attempt has been made to reconstruct the sculptor’s career by taking into account both his biography and the artistic production he began as early as the 1860s. Thanks to extensive archival research and a thorough survey of the bibliographic material related to the topics addressed, a catalogue of Ferrari’s works has been compiled alongside the historical and critical discussion. The catalogue is accompanied by bibliographical references and comparative images (drawings, sketches, and finished works). It is further divided into completed works and projects left unfinished, in order to provide, as far as possible, a detailed overview—almost year by year—of the artist’s sculptural output. The essay section follows a broadly biographical structure while at the same time developing thematic focuses on sculpture in Italy - and particularly in Rome -during the post-Unification period. Finally, the Appendix includes the transcription of numerous mostly unpublished documents, which are cited in the notes throughout the text. The aim is to present, through a monographic approach, Ferrari’s sculptural activity - and only marginally his political one - thus restoring the stature of one of the foremost figures of Italian art between the 1880s and the first decades of the new century, and seeking to redress his long-standing and, by now, anachronistic “historical misfortune.”