The Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara was born, in 1769, as a school of drawing from the nude: the teaching (in addition to geometric and architectural notions), therefore, did not provide for copying from the model, favoring an education aimed at training sculptors of invention. This rigid approach soon changed, at the requests of pupils and professors, and in 1774 a cast of theApollo of Belvedere, procured in Rome by the institute’s “Primary Director” Giovanni Antonio Cybei (1706-1784), went on to form the first piece in the long history of the Academy’s gypsotheque .
As early as 1780 a “prize of the copy in iscoltura” was established, while the collection of plaster casts was enriched with a Dying Gladiator from the studio of Giovanni Baratta (1670-1747), and other ancient models. This first nucleus, which was increased several times until 1796, suffered damage and spoliation during the revolutionary period: in the early nineteenth century, the problem was dealt with by soliciting shipments of plaster casts from nearby Lucca and Paris, with the intention of providing the young with as complete a repertoire of classical statuary as possible.
While Carrara, under the domination of Elisa Baciocchi, became the favored center for the mass production of imperial busts, the Academy’s collections grew in number and importance with the donations of Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and the continual arrivals of plaster portraits of the Napoleonites.
A number of long-established customs thus contributed to swelling the ranks of the gypsoteca throughout the 19th century: the sending of original models as thanks, by honorary professors appointed by the institute, and the new competition regulations, under which the works of the winning pupils would remain the property of the school. Retirees were also required to submit a plaster essay at the end of each year of study spent in Rome.
The considerable patrimony accumulated over the centuries survived virtually intact until after World War II, when academic disinterest in the repertoire of ancient and nineteenth-century sculpture led to neglect and acts of vandalism: finally, since the 1980s, a series of restorations and cataloguing of the material has been undertaken, which, awaiting a permanent arrangement, is scattered in the halls of the ancient Cybo Malaspina palace, the seat of the institute for more than two hundred years.
Themost conspicuous nucleus of casts from antiquity is that preserved in the Academy’s main hall, where there are casts of the Parthenon Fates, donated in 1878 by Bernardo Fabbricotti, a Laocoon group , an imposing Farnese Hercules, a Dancing Silenus, etc. While theApollo of the Belvedere cannot be the 1774 specimen mentioned earlier, it is highly probable that the Dying Gladiator can be traced back to the 18th-century Academy. Prominent among the modern plaster casts are those by Canova: ascending the monumental staircase one first encounters the bust of Clement XIII, taken from the pontiff’s funeral monument in St. Peter’s (1791), then the full-length portrait of Letizia Ramolino, mother of Napoleon. The latter, along with the great Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, was offered as a gift by the sculptor in 1810, in exchange for exemption from export duty for two large blocks of statuary intended for his Roman studio .
In the director’s offices, however, is a rare model (1772) of the equestrian statue of Duke Francesco III d’Este, erected in Modena in 1774 by Abbot Cybei. The original monument was destroyed in 1796, and this plaster cast, together with the similar specimen preserved in the Ducal Palace in Sassuolo, is valuable for reconstructing its appearance.
Also of great significance is the Three Hoursgroup by Carlo Finelli (1782-1853), a bequest in the sculptor’s will, preserved in the Marble Room, and the many models by Bartolini, Cacciatori, Rauch, Thorvaldsen, etc.
Special attention should be paid to the bas-reliefs of pupils who won competitions for the pensioner: the impressive sequence, unfortunately divided into several rooms and courtyards, opens with the 1809 essay by Carlo Fontana (1782-1857), Hercules with a wounded amazon, and continues with works by the greatest authors to come out of the Carrarese school, from Pietro Tenerani (1789-1869) to Luigi Bienaimé (1795-1878), Ferdinando Pelliccia (1808-1892), Giuseppe Lazzerini (1831-1895), Carlo Nicoli (1843-1915), Alessandro Biggi (1848-1926) and many others. The sequence of reliefs also makes it possible to follow the evolution of taste, and of the stylistic orientations of academic art, with the gradual abandonment of the Greek verb and the entry of elements of verism and symbolism; one thus discovers essays by Carlo Fontana (1865-1956), Arturo Dazzi (1881-1961) and Alderige Giorgi (1886-1970), in an exciting journey that concludes with a theme of pressing relevance, The Tragedy of Polesine, with which Vittorio Tabaracci (1928-2014) emerged as the winner of the last competition for the pensioner in Rome, held in 1953 .
The lack of a suitable venue undoubtedly affects the enjoyment of this heterogeneous heritage, much of which is still kept in the Academy’s storerooms, but a very recent project promises to finally solve the long-standing problem, with the transfer of the entire collection to the so-called Palazzo Rosso, a building constructed at the end of the 18th century precisely as the seat of the institute, whose restoration has been awaited for years.