The Carabinieri In The Storm Antonio Berti

Bronze sculpture signed on the A.Berti terrace, named “The Carabinieri in the Storm”, one of the most famous works of this artist, composed in 1973 at the request of General Arnoldo Ferrara. Wooden base. Total height 23 cm, height of the bronze alone 19.5 cm. Width of the bronze 13 cm, width of the base 16 cm. Antonio Berti (San Piero a Sieve, August 24, 1904 - Sesto Fiorentino, 1990) was an Italian sculptor and medalist. He was born into a very modest family of peasants and shepherds, he showed an early interest in art from his at a young age and at the age of seventeen he got a job with Richard Ginori where he could devote himself to the design of the products of this porcelain industry. The writer Ugo Ojetti, who had had the opportunity to see some of his terracotta works, advised his father Angiolo to enroll him at the Santa Croce Art Institute in Florence. From there began Berti's artistic career with his first participations in the Venice Biennale and the Rome Quadrennial. He devoted himself above all to the portrait by sculpting various busts. The monument to Foscolo placed in Santa Croce in Florence pointed this out to critics. There followed the busts of various members of the royal family (Vittorio Emanuele III, Maria Josè, etc.), of Mussolini, of the Locatelli Gold Medal, of Paola Ojetti, of the American billionaire Barbara Hutton, of Susanna Agnelli. The portraits of the writer and designer Enrico Sacchetti and of Amedeo, Duke of Aosta are also of great artistic value. After the war, many great monuments of famous people are due to Antonio Berti. We remember the monument to Alcide De Gasperi in Trento (in collaboration with Sergio Benvenuti), that of Pius XII in Rome, the monument of Santa Luisa di Marillac in San Pietro (at the time when he was the official sculptor of the Holy Seat), the bronze statue of Don Giulio Facibeni in the square in front of the Church of Santo Stefano in Pane, Florence, the statue of Benedetta Bianchi Porro in Dovadola (in the Forlì Apennines), and finally the bronze statue of Guglielmo Marconi built in 1974 in the grounds of Villa Griffone in Sasso Marconi. It is also to Berti that we owe the portal of the co-cathedral Santissima Maria Assunta and San Catello in Castellammare di Stabia and the monument to Queen Elena, erected in Messina, in memory of the sovereign's relief work during the earthquake that devastated the city. He also created the monument to Padre Pio and the sketch of that of Aldo Moro for his hometown of Maglie. The latter was built in 1992 by his pupil, the sculptor Stefano Patti, and inaugurated in 1998 in Maglie by the President of the Republic, Eugenio Scalfaro. In the Vatican Museums (Modern Religious Art Collection) there is a bronze Christ from 1972. In the 1980s, he produced some commemorative medals commissioned by Rodolfo Siviero, for the inauguration of the exhibition of works found after the war. In May 2014, on the occasion of the bicentenary of the Arma dei Carabinieri, a recasting of Berti's group entitled Patrouille des carabiniers dans la tempête, 1973, was placed in Rome, in the garden of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale. In June 1814, King Vittorio Emanuele I established the Royal Corps of Carabinieri for the maintenance of good order, regulated by royal patents in July of the same year. To celebrate this anniversary with particular solemnity, the General Command of Arma has joined forces with ANCI (National Association of Municipalities of Italy) in order to promote a subscription to all municipal administrations and to erect a commemorative monument in Rome in the gardens of Via del Quirinale with a bronze statue expressing the reality of the life of the rifleman. The subject to be used for the monument was identified in the reproduction of the group "I carabinieri nella tormenta", a work that Antonio Berti had composed in 1973 at the request of General Arnoldo Ferrara and which, after its conservation in the study of president Sandro Pertini, is currently on display at the Carabinieri Historical Museum in Rome. The sculptural complex represents a patrol of riflemen advancing in the cold of a blizzard of wind and snow and well represents self-sacrifice and determination, characteristic virtues of the army at all times and in all the circumstances of social life. from the country.