- Pietro Bracci
Pietro Bracci (1700 — 1773) was an Italian sculptor working in the Late Baroque manner.
Biography
He was born in
Rome and became a student ofGiuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari andCamillo Rusconi .He sculpted the figures for the tomb of Benedict XIII (1734) in
Santa Maria sopra Minerva , Rome, which was designed by the architectCarlo Marchionni , and for the tomb ofBenedict XIV (1763-1770) in theBasilica of Saint Peter , completed with the help of his pupilGaspare Sibilia . The third tomb at St Peter's on which he worked commemoratesMaria Clementina Sobieski (1742), wife of the "Old Pretender ", James Stuart, one of the Catholic Stuart claimants to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. It is one of three monuments in St. Peter's dedicated to the deposed royal line of Stuart. The sculpture in polychrome with an image of Maria Clementina in mosaic held aloft by Charity. The monument was conceived by the architectFilippo Barigioni , who provided preliminary sketches. Bracci designed and sculpted the polychromatic tomb of "Cardinal Giuseppe Renato Imperiali" (1741) inSant'Agostino in Rome.His most familiar work is the colossal Neptune (after 1759) of the
Trevi Fountain , Rome, where he was constrained to follow a plaster "modello " byGiovanni Battista Maini , who died before he could execute the marble.There are several official busts of Benedict XIII by Bracci, and a terracotta (1724), conserved in
Palazzo Venezia , Rome. The aged glare of the pope in the marble portrait was an image difficult to beautify.Bracci died in Rome in 1773.
References
* [http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/bracci/index.html Web Gallery of Art:] Pietro Bracci
*cite book | author= Bruce Boucher| year=1998| title= Italian Baroque Sculpture| chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= 126 | publisher= Thames & Hudson, World of Art| id= | url= | authorlink=
*cite book | author= Elisabeth Kieven and John Pinto| year=2001| title= Pietro Bracci and Eighteenth-Century Rome: Drawings for Architecture and Sculpture in the Canadian Centre for Architecture and Other Collections | chapter= | editor= | others= | pages= 126 | publisher= | id= | url= | authorlink=Further reading
* Kieven, Elisabeth and John Pinto., " [http://www.psupress.psu.edu/books/titles/0-271-02008-3.html Architecture and Sculpture in Eighteenth-Century Rome: Drawings by Pietro and Virginio Bracci in the CCA and Other Collections] ", Penn State Press, 2001 ISBN 0-271-02008-3
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