BALZICO, Alfonso

Italian sculptor. He trained at the Fine Arts Academy in Naples taught by Tito Angelini, a neoclassical sculptor who followed the naturalism of Bartolini and Tenerani. Balzico travelled throughout Italy to increase his artistic knowledge, staying, among others, in Naples, Rome, Milan and Florence. During this period he met Vincenzo Vela, Francesco Hayez and Massimo D’Azeglio, artists who would influence his style encouraging him to move from Neoclassicism to a Realism characterised by a strong Romanticism.

Returning to Naples he opened his own atelier and began working on genre sculptures which attracted the attention of King Vittorio Emanuele II. In 1860, the Prince of Carignano invited him to Turin and the King appointed him court sculptor. He sculpted numerous busts for the royal court, an equestrian statue of the King’s brother, Ferdinando of Savoy, Duke of Genoa, considered his masterpiece, as well as a monument to Massimo D’Azeglio.

In 1875 he moved to Rome, following the King when he moved to the capital, and there he sculpted his Vincenzo Bellini monument and took part, without winning, in the competition for the creation of the monument to King Vittorio Emanuele II for the city of Naples. When Franceschi died, the City Council commissioned Balzico to replace this artist and produce the equestrian statue inaugurated in 1897. In 1900 he presented his monument to Flavio Gioia at the Universal Exposition in Paris, winning the gold medal. The work was created to commemorate the anniversary of the discovery of America and represents the imaginary person traditionally attributed with the invention of the compass. It was later purchased by the city of Amalfi.

The Museo Balzico, inaugurated in Rome in 1907, exhibited 147 works by the artist. When his heirs decided to close it in 1917, they donated all the works to the Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome.