Francesco Carradori – Wikipedia

Francesco Carradori (Pistoia, 1747 – Pistoia, 22 December 1824) was an Italian sculptor and restorer.

Son of Joseph, he sculpted in Crete from a young age and was under the protection of the Ippoliti family. He will then sculpt the funeral monument of Bishop Giuseppe Ippoliti, in the church of the Madonna dell’Umiltà, in Pistoia.
In Florence, since 1770 he was a pupil of Innocenzo Spinazzi and in Rome he studied at the school of Agostino Penna. In the building of Villa Borghese he performed stucco, in the wake of the classic taste decoration, decorative elements and pillars in the entrance hall and, in the Galatea gallery, some fireplaces of the pillars and the two large surveys with Aeolus in the act of release the winds to dissipate the Trojan ships It is Neptune and Tetide . The reliefs already show his style, of classicist inclination, but still mindful of the Baroque tradition and Bernini.

At the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In 1779, a fragment of the Medici vase (now preserved in the Uffizi) arrived in Rome, from Florence, which was to be restored. The sculptor began in Rome the restoration and finished it in Florence, where he was documented in December 1780. In Florence he restored ancient statues, coming from Rome and carried out four oval stuccos in the Niobe room , to the Uffizi, finished in 1782. ^[first] In Rome, in 1784, he restored a sarcophagus of Villa Medici, who was then brought to Florence and which today is to the Uffizi. He was also entrusted with the restoration of sculptures of the Uffizi Gallery: the groups Love and Psyche It is Wrestlers , sculpture Osrocatine and the bust of Alessandro Magno . In 1785 he sculpted his arms for the Venus of the Medici , an example of very common supplementary restoration at the time.

Between Rome and Florence [ change | Modifica Wikitesto ]

In 1786 he returned to Rome and performed the portrait of the musician Antonio Sacchini (died on October 7, 1786), for the tomb, in the chapel of S. Giuseppe al Pantheon (today the portrait is at the Capitoline protomoteca). The Grand Duke Leopoldo II of Habsburg-Lorena attracted him to Florence and gave him the task of buying chalks for the Academy of Florence. Here, Carradori sculpted the bust of Grand Duke Leopoldo. He also made the allegorical statue there Virtue , for the chapel of the SS. Annunziata, in the Medici Villa of Poggio Imperiale.

At the death of Spinazzi he was appointed, in 1798, master of sculpture in the Academy of Florence. He wrote, for the use of the students, Elementary education for sculpture scholars (Florence, 1802), with frontispiece and sixteen tables performed on his design. It is the first manual of the genre. He explains, with abundance of details, the secrets of sculpture in “earth”, in “wax”, of the “plaster models”, “of the different ways of working in stucco”, of the “stone and marble sculpture”, “of the way to restore the ancient sculptures “,” of the bronze works “and” of the form and parts of a sculpture study “.

Healthcare of health, on September 20, 1807 he made a will, in Pistoia. The funeral monument of Giuseppe Bencivenni Pelli, who died on 31 July 1808, re -sculpted again.

• Valentine Martinelli, The Capitoline protomotec , Rome, division x antiquity and fine arts of the Municipality of Rome, 1955. Co -author and Carlo Pietrangeli.
• Aa vv, The eighteenth century in Rome , Rome, De Luca Editore, 1959. Exhibition catalog,
• Guido A. Manselli, The Uffizi Gallery , Milan, Martello-Pirola, 1968.