Florentine Avant-Garde sculptor Romano Romanelli was born on 7 January 1882. He died in 20 January 1969 in Florence. He comes from a family of renowned sculptors, which continues to this day. Even though he studied Mathematics at Pisa University and attended the Italian Naval Academy at Livorno – which led him to a career in the Italian Navy – he also studied sculpture in his father’s studio and workshop. His career had been largely benefited by his one year stay in Paris, where he joined the intellectual circle of Auguste Rodin, Antoine Bourdelle, Aristide Maillol and Maurice Denis.
Romanelli received his major commissions during the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini; for whom he also monumental bas-relief Mussolini on horseback for the Torre della Rivoluzione in Brescia.
Further reading
Rossella Campana (1991) Romano Romanelli. Un’espressione del classicismo nella scultura del Novecento, Casa Editrice Leo S. Olschki.
Romano Romanelli in 1914.
Romano Romanelli, Rome, 1935.
Hercules strangling the Nemean Lion, 1906-1910, Piazza Ognissanti, Florence.
The sculptor.
Miss Dorothy Hayter, 1917.
The Water Bearer, 1912.
Eva, 1919.