GIUSEPPE FABBRIIS. — Sculptor, born at Nove di Bassano on 19 August 1790, died in Rome on 22 August 1860. He studied in Milan with Gaetano Monti and at the Brera Academy, then in 1813 he moved to Rome where he came into contact with Canova. Elected in 1820 academician of S. Luca, he later became president and perpetual regent of the Accademia dei Virtuosi at the Pantheon and director general of the Vatican Museums.
Correct, cold, conventional, but undoubtedly an excellent connoisseur of ancient sculpture and of his craft, much renowned and appreciated in his own time and then almost entirely consigned to oblivion, F. should be regarded as a typical representative of Roman sculpture of the generation following that of Canova, already turned in an academic and purist direction. Among his works may be recalled: besides a statue of M. Napoleon for one of the spires of Milan cathedral (1811), a bust of G. G. Trissino in Campo di Fiore (1817) and again in Rome the tomb of Ugolino Maninelli Galilei in S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, that of Monsignor Fontana in S. Carlo ai Catinari, another of the Countess Tornati Robilant in S. Andrea della Valle, the tomb of Leo XII in St Peter’s, the colossal statue of that Saint outside the basilica, and the tomb of Tasso in S. Onofrio. This last, among the works of F., is perhaps that which best represents the further development of his art, at the moment when, around the mid-century, it turned, not without elegance, towards Romantic taste.