Per la riscoperta di Luigi Scorzini, scultore milanese

The essay reconstructs the life and oeuvre of Luigi Scorzini (1799-1839), a Milanese sculptor trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera under Camillo Pacetti, who has long remained marginalised in art-historical scholarship. Heir to his father’s goldsmith workshop, Scorzini translated into sculpture a language of pronounced classical rigour and a philological sensitivity chiefly shaped by the models of Canova and Thorvaldsen. Active at the Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano, where he produced numerous statues from 1828 onwards, he also contributed to several significant religious and civic commissions across the city – from the church of San Sepolcro to the façade of San Giuseppe, culminating in the Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, where his marble statue of Saint Ambrose (1833) sparked lively controversy for its unprecedented antiquarian reinterpretation. An author of busts, reliefs, and mythological groups, Scorzini was a steadfast exponent of Lombard classicism and remained largely unreceptive to the emergent Romantic idiom. The rediscovery of his career permits the reinstatement of his prominent role within the panorama of Milanese sculpture in the first half of the nineteenth century.