MARCHIORI, Giovanni

Italian sculptor. He may have trained with Andrea Brustolon, but his style was more influenced by the elegant classicism of such Venetian sculptors as Giuseppe Torretti and Antonio Corradini. His first recorded work is a wooden sacristy cupboard (c. 1715) for the parish church at Caviola, and before 1738 he had carved the six marble Sibyls and the seven marble Apostles for Santa Maria degli Scalzi, Venice. The signed marble statues of St Alexis and St Juliana for the Servite church in Venice (now in Fratta Polesine, Parish Church) were completed in 1738, and there followed low reliefs in wood, showing scenes from the Life of St Roch (1741) for the Scuola di San Rocco, Venice, which were distinguished by their varied compositions and elaborate settings, enriched by surprisingly naturalistic architecture and landscape.

In 1743 Marchiori completed works for San Rocco, Venice, a marble relief of the Glory of St Roch over the entrance (now replaced by a bronze copy) and the marble figures of David with the Head of Goliath and St Cecilia. These, his most celebrated works, look forward, in their extreme refinement and formal beauty, to Neo-classicism, although their lively outlines and picturesque qualities remain Rococo.

Marchiori’s output was vast, and his most significant works in Venice include the marble relief of the Pool of Bethesda (1753; San Simeone Piccolo, Venice) and the marble St Peter (1753; Santa Maria della Pietà, Venice). Between 1765 and 1767 he spent some time in Treviso, where he made two powerful marble statues of Hope and Faith (Santa Maria Maddalena, Treviso), characterized by the rhythmic and sensual beauty of broad folds of drapery. His marble figures of Cybele and Saturn are in the garden of the Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich. His work may have had a formative influence on Antonio Canova.