This brief itinerary among the public monuments of Massa and Carrara starts from Piazza Mercurio, the ancient market square in the historic center of Massa: here, where there was formerly a well, Marquis Alberico I Cybo-Malaspina had a fountain erected, surmounted by a marble statue of Mercury (1566). As early as the mid-seventeenth century, thought began to be given to modernizing, and enlarging, the ensemble, giving it a more monumental imprint through the insertion of a tall column, but the project remained on paper for more than a century. It was not until 1770, under the auspices of Duchess Maria Teresa Cybo d’Este, that work was set in motion, carried out according to the design of architect Domenico Bertelloni. The undertaking, however, ended in tragedy: two winches broke while a section of the large marble column was being hoisted, killing a master mason and the construction manager. In September 1771, the damage was finally fixed, with the intervention of a true specialist in the handling and installation of sculpture, the Carrarese Giovanni Battista Raggi (1728-1794). The new statue of the Mercury with its column (both made in Carrara sculpture workshops) remained intact until 1945, when it unluckily fell under an Allied artillery strike, and the monument’s current appearance is due to a 1980 restoration (today’s sculpture is a copy).
Continuing toward the Ducal Palace, a very short walk leads to Piazza Aranci, a large pedestrian space in which stands theObelisk of Italian Unity. The actual obelisk was erected in 1853, when the city was part of the Duchy of Modena, and was intended as an act of gratitude to the Este sovereigns. The original inscriptions, which recalled ducal intervention in favor of the marble industry and education, were removed in 1860, and replaced with new patriotically inspired epigraphs. In 1886 the complex was enriched with the inclusion of the fountain, decorated by the four marble lions designed by Giovanni Isola from Carrara, director of the “Real Stabilimento di Belle Arti in Massa” (now the State Institute of Art), and completed by his son Lodovico. Finally, the plaque commemorating the “legendary Apuan resistance” dates from 1945, tangible evidence of the high symbolic value that has always been recognized in this monument.
Going down the valley, with a pleasant walk along Viale Eugenio Chiesa, it takes a few minutes to reach the monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi, erected in the square of the same name in 1906. The model was prepared in Florence by sculptor Ezio Ceccarelli (1865-1927), but its translation into marble took place in the city, in the workshops of entrepreneur Clemente Cuturi, who entrusted the work to a young Roman artist, Fernando Tombesi (1878-1969). While the figure of the Risorgimento hero, wrapped in the iconic cloak-poncho, is rather conventional, the base is astonishing, in which not episodes from Garibaldi’s history are represented but four allegorical concepts (Vis et Ius; Pro Patria; Unitas; Libertas), in a whirlwind of images with a very eclectic taste.
Moving on to nearby Carrara, with a drive of about ten minutes (via the scenic Foce road), the itinerary will resume from the very central Piazza Gramsci: this pleasant urban space, carved out at the end of the 19th century from the prince’s ancient gardens (hence the popular name “Piazza d’Armi”), is rich in monuments, confirming the artistic vocation, and strong civic tradition, of the city.
Pellegrino Rossi, from his high seat, dominates the scene. Born in Carrara in 1787, Rossi was a celebrated jurist and politician, a staunch federalist; his assassination in 1848 triggered the events that led to the birth of the Roman Republic. The model for the statue is due to fellow citizen Pietro Tenerani (1789-1869), while the marble version was worked on by Scipone Iardella (1823-?), under the supervision of Ferdinando Pelliccia (1808-1892), at the time director of the local Academy of Fine Arts. The side reliefs depict L’insegnamento di Rossi all’Università di Parigi, by Alessandro Biggi (1848-1926), and Rossi davanti al Consiglio federale della Svizzera, by Aristide Milani (†1878): the state of preservation of the ensemble suffers from the extensive damage caused by a bomb attack that, in December 1978, hit Pellegrino Rossi hard during a visit by Minister Andreotti to the city .
On theleft is a group withCivilization Conquering Barbarism by French sculptor André-Joseph Allar (1845-1926) and, on the opposite side, monuments to Giuseppe Verdi (1919, by Giuseppe) and anarchist trade unionist Alberto Meschi (1965), whom sculptor Ezio Nelli (1909-1999) depicted surrounded by a group of quarrymen with their families. Inscriptions commemorate Meschi’s social achievements on behalf of marble workers.
After passing the large fountain with the Floating Ball (1979) by Kenneth Davis (1918-1992) and reaching the old Cybo-Malaspina palace, they follow in sequence :Plage et falaise (1960), by the well-known French sculptor Jean Ipoustéguy (1920-2006), the Venus Apuana (2023) by Franco Mauro Franchi, and the Pietro Tacca (1900) by Carlo Fontana (1865-1956), a memorial to the great seventeenth-century sculptor (born in Carrara), known to most as the author of the famous Quatto Mori ( 1623-1626) in Livorno (whose pose the statue resumes).
On theopposite side of the Ducal Palace, in the square of the same name, stands instead the imposing Giuseppe Mazzini (1892) by Biggi (whom we have already met among the authors of the monument to Pellegrino Rossi); the sculptor, who was also mayor of the city, was known for a lively “spirit of truth,” and his Mazzini, in a pensive attitude as he opens the manifesto of the “Giovine Italia,” seems almost about to descend from the high pedestal, adorned by the She-wolf of Rome wounded by an arrow, the symbol of that Roman Republic of 1849 that had him as triumvir.
Taking the ancient Via Santa Maria, we then enter the oldest part of the city, soon touching on the Piazza del Duomo, where we find the titanic Giant (1537) by Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1569), a colossal portrait of the Genoese condottiere Andrea Doria as Neptune, reinvented for use as a fountain in 1564 .
Descending the first stretch of Via Ghibellina, from the facade of the Duomo, a short detour to the right leads across the 18th-century Bridge of Tears to the ancient fountain of the Siren, whose figure (much worn), inspired a popular legend about the alleged love between the mythological creature and the soothsayer Arontes . A little further on, in an alcove along Carriona Street, one comes across an unfinished Curtius throwing himself into the chasm: the equestrian statue, a probable remnant of one of the many sculpture workshops that existed in the area in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was long believed to be a Roman work, and gave its name to the district (known precisely as “al Cavallo”) .
Returning to Via Ghibellina, and walking down it to Piazza Alberica, there is then the majestic monument to Maria Beatrice d’Este (1824): an emblem of neoclassical Carrara immortalized by D’Annunzio’s verses (“On Piazza Alberica the sunshine // mute darts its thick flame; // and, in the silence, at the foot of the Duchess // the water sings its raucous song”). The monument consists of a high plinth with steps and a fountain, above which stands the statue of the sovereign (Duchess of Massa and Princess of Carrara, who died in 1829), larger than life, in old-fashioned robes, with the Este eagle and crowned by the “Pòlos,” a headdress used for maternal deities in ancient Greece. It is the work of Pietro Fontana (1782-1857), while the base is adorned by bas-reliefs with Aronte among the sister arts, by Matteo Bogazzi, Minerva presenting the Genius of Sculpture in Carrara, by Giovanni Tacca (1803-1831), and Maria Beatrice enthroned among Charity, Justice and Religion, by Giuseppe del Nero .
Leaving the square and heading toward the Animosi Theater, one first encounters the monument to Mazzinian Antonio Fratti (1906, in Piazza Fabrizio de André), then the monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi (1889, in the square of the same name), both works by sculptor and entrepreneur Carlo Nicoli (1843-1915), in whose studio (still extant) many of the monuments previously encountered were made, from Fontana’s Tacca to the works of Allar and Ipoustéguy. The hero of the two worlds is caught in the act of vigorously gesturing as he disembarks at Marsala, his sword drawn and one foot still on the boat, in a set of great vividness that seems to echo the words Garibaldi then uttered, “There it is! The island of the portents; the home of Ceres, Archimedes and the Vespers, that is, of intelligence and valor.”
Afew tens of meters away, at the intersection of Corso Rosselli and Via Cavour, the route draws to a close with the Moretta Fountain (1928) by Cesare Poli (1904-1964), alluding to Italian colonial exploits, and ends in Piazza 2 Giugno, near the municipal headquarters, with the very elegant Messenger (1967, also known as the Dove of Peace) by Carlo Sergio Signori (1906-1988), Milanese by birth but Carrarese by adoption, to whom we also owe the controversial monument to the regicide anarchist Gaetano Bresci, installed after the sculptor’s death (in 1990) near the Turigliano Cemetery, about four kilometers from the historic center .