Ettore Ximenes Biography
Ettore Ximenes was an Italian sculptor born in 1855 in Palermo. He studied at the Institute of Fine Arts in Palermo and then moved to Naples. In 1874 he obtained a government pension to study in Florence. In 1878 he won a gold medal in Paris for his opera "L'Equilibrio" and another prize in Turin in 1880 for his group "Ciceruacchio" which was later installed in Rome. He participated in various competitions, winning some and thus gaining a fair amount of fame. He created his first monument to Garibaldi, commissioned by Pesaro in 1887. In Rome he won the competition for the Quadriga of the Palace of Justice, executed the Law group for the monument to Vittorio, and designed the Monument to Bottego which it was to be erected in Parma in 1907.
Ximenes' artistic production is vast. In it the illustrative and baroque tendency prevails, which is typical of his temperament, but there is also naturalistic observation and good-natured language, which constitute the best of his work in the busts and fragments.
Among the notable works should be remembered "Gli scolari del cuore" of 1887, the Monument to Garibaldi in Milan of 1895, the Mausoleum of General Belgrano in Buenos Aires of 1898, the Monument to Dante and that to G. da Verrazzano in New York, the Verdi Monument in Parma, the Alexander II Monument in Kiev, the Brazilian Independence Monument, the Raul Suarez de Moura sepulchral monument in Brazil, the David, the Bacchante, the statue of Alexander I of the Kisinǎu Monument ( Chisinau, Bessarabia).
He died on 20 December 1926 in Rome.
