Gli anni romani di Giosuè Meli: la fama della Madre pompeiana, la Santa Francesca Romana sulle ceneri del Bernini, il Cristo legato alla colonna alla Scala Santa

The paper is about the bergamasque sculptor Giosuè Meli (1816-1893): through known and unpublished works, photos, documents and printed poems, the fame and critical fortune of the artist emerges in the second half of nineteenth century. Meli’s personality has its main development in the papal Rome of Pius IX Mastai: in the second half of the nineteenth century the sculptor imposes hinself for a neoclassical language not devoid of romantic influences, attracting commissions of the Roman aristocracy and boasting among his patrons and collectors Pope Pius IX and Alexandra Fëdorovna, empress consort of all Russias. Since the 1860’s, Giosuè has been involved in monumental works: with the ‘Pompeian Mother’ – purchased by Lord Mitchell Henry for his London residence, and currently dispersed – Meli is part of a nineteenth century vein that recovers the Baroque tradition of Bernini, an artist who will be replaced with the marble of the ‘Santa Francesca Romana’ in the homonymous basilica near the Roman Forum, in the center of Rome. This monument will allow him to remain on the crest of the wave inside the Capitoline ecclesiastical potentate, a fact that connects the marble of the Saint with the last great Roman work by Meli, the ‘Christ bound’: purchased by Pius IX, it will be placed in the 1874 in the Sanctuary of the Holy Ladder, while the relative plaster is found in the church of Trinità dei Monti. Giosuè, with his sculptural activity, was able to conquer a place in the artistic scene of nineteenth century Rome.