








itol. However, two other Italians, Giuseppe Franzoni and Giovanni Andrei, were the first sculptors called by Benjamin Latrobe to decorate the U.S. Capitol in 1806. The story of their fortunes was recorded by Charles E. Fairman, art curator of the U.S. Capitol.12 He was given the opportunity to retell it in a speech to the House of Representatives in 1930, through the initiative of Fiorello LaGuardia, then a Congressman from New York.13 It is worth retelling in part.
Fairman reminded the House of Representatives that, when these young Italian sculptors Andrei and his brother-in-law Franzoni arrived in Washington, on a cold February 24, 1806, with their wives, they were "people destined to exert a lasting influence upon the art of the Capitol of the United States." They had left Carrara and Italy, both so full of artistic wealth. Sailing from Leghorn, they had been at sea for 146 days. They contemplated the unfinished condition of the Capitol, "begun at a time when the country was entirely destitute of artists" and the meager settlement destined to be the capital city with an obvious feeling of disappointment. There were no people who spoke Italian, and they must have wondered why they had come at all. For these, as Fairman stressed, were not ordinary immigrants. Franzoni's father, Antonio, was a distinguished sculptor who had done extensive restoration and original work for the Animal Room of the Vatican Museum and was the presi-ent of the Carrara Academy. Andrei had studied at the arrara Academy and decorated the balustrade of the in Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Franzoni's was a cardinal. They did not lack money or recogni-on   their native land. Why did they come? It must be assumed that the desire to contribute to the birth of to Ph^e in the budding Republic had persuaded them   ^ertake the venture. Instrumental in their enthusi-Jeff WaS course the personal persuasion of Thomas bufl^T ^en President, who, in his determination to had * 6 U S' Capitol and to foster the arts in America, 1803 aV^> ^nteC^ Ben)amin Latrobe, as public architect, in Hou Latrobes hrst project was the completion of the SCU1^ Representatives. His plan called for extensive
Phtfal ornamentation. Philip Mazzei was asked to suitable sculptors in Italy.
great  u8h the name of Mazzei is surely familiar to a worthmany People in the United States today, it may be remembering that this physician from Tuscany had
36.	Early Italian Sculptors
come to Albemarle County Virginia, in 1773, to introduce the cultivation of grape, olive, and other Italian fruits in America. He was a neighbor of Thomas Jefferson, and in the course of their growing friendship he became his advisor not only in agricultural matters, but in democratic Kieais and also in art. No wonder then that Jefferson advised Latrobe to ask Mazzei's help in securing sculptors. hi Latrobe's Journal two letters to Mazzei carry explicit directions as to the quality of the sculptors and the financial arrangements proposed during their two-year contract with the U.S. government. Upon their arrival, Franzoni and Andrei found Latrobe a warm and helpful friend. He was also the only person who could converse in Italian with them. Interestingly, the Italian sculptors, as was customary in Italy had brought marble articles as presents for Jefferson when they called on him. Like Washington, Jefferson also felt he could not accept them: "Be assured that I receive this mark of good will as thankfully as if I could accept it, but I have laid it down as a law to myself to accept no presents of value while I am in public life."14 This he wrote to Franzoni, March 2,1806. Jefferson assured the sculptor that he would "avail myself of every occasion to be helpful to you," and according to Fairman, he gave Mrs. Franzoni a silver dish for Christmas. Furthermore, it is reported by Franzoni's descendants (still living today in the United States) that he was often invited to dine at the White House on Sunday evenings.
One of the very first tasks for Giuseppe Franzoni was to do a huge eagle for the frieze of the House of Representatives. Since his design represented the classical Roman eagle, Latrobe asked Charles W Peale for a drawing of the bald eagle (preserved in the Peale Museum) to acquaint Franzoni with the American variety of the species.15 Although the Italian sculptors' two-year contract was to become a lifetime one, in 1808, due to Jefferson's budget economy, they found they needed more work. The architect Maximilian Godefroy, Latrobe's friend, asked them to come to Baltimore for about four months. There they did, among other works, a large lunette for the tympanum of the Union Bank, a piece which is now on the garden wall of the Peale Museum.16 As Wayne Craven notes, after they returned to Washington, they did a great deal of sculpture in the Capitol, most of which, however, was destroyed when the English burned it in 1814.
Giuseppe Franzoni died in Washington on April 6, 1815, leaving a widow and six children, all but one bom in America. At that time, his brother-in-law Andrei was sent to Italy by the government to procure Carrara marble for the Corinthian capitals in the Hall of die House of Representatives, since 1857 known as the Statuary Hall. Andrei returned in 1816, with Carlo Franzoni, a younger brother of Giuseppe, and a cousin Francesco lardella lardella's work that has been identified so far the tobacco capitals in the small rotunda north of the
  Canitol rotunda Andrei died in 1824. Carlo Fran-of History" is believed to be the oldest
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7. THE ETHNIC LEGACY
Another important Italian sculptor was Giuseppe Val-aperta, of Genoa, who arrived from France in 1815 and enjoyed a considerable reputation, until his death under mysterious circumstances two years later. He too did an American eagle,  upon the frieze at the south side of Statuary Hall."17
All the sculptors mentioned so far came from the school of Carrara. According to Fairman they were the best. In his opinion, Capellano, of Florence, who did Preservation of Captain John Smith by Pocahontas, Causici, of Verona, who did Landing of the Pilgrims and Daniel Boone and the Indians, all in the Capitol, and Persico, of Naples, sculptor of the Statues of Peace and War and The Discovery Group, did not show great strength of inspiration in their attempts "to Americanize Italian art." Still, it is interesting to examine their attempts to express events that were so far from their own experience, and it is possible that a second look at their achievements might provide some insights into the power of adaptation of artists.
The 1820s brought a period of stagnation for the Capitol decoration. Latrobe retired and Bullfinch, the new architect of the Capitol took over. Fairman mentions Cardelli, another Italian sculptor of the time, and the letters in which he lamented the state of art in the capital. These letters were sold at auction in the early part of this century and surely ought to be retrieved and made available to the Archives of American Art and the Immigration History Research Center. However, thanks to the influence of the Italian sculptors, a new era in American sculpture was dawning the native one. Congress began granting commissions to native sculptors, most of whom had gone to Italy to learn their craft. The first of this long series is of course Horatio Greenough, whose statue of Washington scrupulously modeled on the Phidias Zeus and intended for the rotunda, found little favor in the eyes of his fellow citizens; "the General looks so pale," a kindly old lady was heard muttering, after viewing the statue, which is now at the Smithsonian Institution.
The list of native sculptors who studied and even settled in Italy is a long one. Their interaction with Italian artists invites fruitful study. Lorado Taft noted in 1923:
... at a recent meeting of the National Sculpture Society there were four candidates for membership-all Italians On another occasion, among ten candidates four again were Italians. The catalogue of the great sculpture exhibit of 1923 seems to be half Italian. Masters of the solid attainments of the Piccirillis, the wizardry of Lentelli and the imagination of Billotti, Salvatore, and Scarpitta en liven exhibitions of the academy and make their valuable contributions. ... On the whole ... the presence of this army of traditional sculptors is one of the most potent factors m America's artistic development.18
It would seem that the time has come for a systematic study of the interaction between Italian and American art This brief sketch of the early Italian sculptors in America has been written in the hope that it will stimulate new generations of art historians, and especially those of
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Italian heritage, to undertake the exploration o largely untouched field. The reward will be a rich or a real contribution to the artistic and social hist< America.
Acknowledgement: I wish to thank Ulysse G. Desport Ceracchi expert, for his generous assistance in the prepare the Ceracchi portion of my study. Painter, sculptor, a historian, Professor Desportes is chairman of the Art I ment of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia 1956, when he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Cerai the Sorbonne, Professor Desportes has published a nw articles on the subject and has completed a definitive bio and catalogue raisonne of Ceracchi's works.
NOTES
1.	Charles Lester, My Consulship, 2 vols. (New York 1:301.
2.	Cornelius Vermeule, European Art and the Classic (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964),
3.	Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America (New York: Thi Crowell Co., 1968), p. 59.
4.	Gerard Hubert, Les Sculpteurs Italiens En France . Revolution L'Empire et La Restauration, 1790-1830 (Paris: E E. De Boccard, 1964), p. 28.
5.	Craven, Sculpture in America, pp. 63-64.
6.	Ulysse Desportes, "Giuseppe Ceracchi in Amer: His Busts of George Washington," The Art Quarterly 2f (1963), ill. p. 141.
7.	Ulysse Desportes, "Ceracchi's Bust of Alexande ilton," The Currier Art Gallery Bulletin, April-June 1969, also Desportes, "Great Men of America in Romar Sculptured by Giuseppe Ceracchi," Antiques, July 196
8.	Charles Coleman Sellers, Charles Willson Peale (Ne 1969), p. 269.
9.	Marius Schoonmaker, John Vanderlyn, Artist, 17/ (Kingston. N.Y.: The Senate House Association, 1950
10.	Renzo De Felice, "Ricerche Storiche sul 'Giacobir Italiano," Rassegna Storica del Risorgimento, Anno XLV cicolo 1 (Gennaio-Marzo 1960)
11.	Ernest Hatch Wilkins, A History of Italian Literatui bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 3'
12.	Charles E. Fairman, Art and Artists of the Capit United States of America, 2d ed. (Washington: U.S. Gove Printing Office, 1923).
13.	"Art of the Italian Artists in the United States C Extension of the remarks of the Hon. Fiorello H. LaGu New York in the House of Representatives, January An address by Mr. Charles E. Fairman, Curator of Ai Capitol, Congressional Record. (I am deeply grateful Florian H. Thayn, Head of the Art and Reference I Office 
