In the 19th century, Rome was not only the capital of the Papal States, but the greatest creative laboratory on the planet. As modern nations sought an aesthetic to celebrate their heroes and their independence, they turned their gaze to Rome. Here, among the marble ruins and academies, Italian and foreign artists trained to design the icons that today define capitals from Washington to St. Petersburg, from Paris to London, from Berlin to Tokyo.
- Europe: Classical Models for Great Capitals
The “Grand Tour” was not just a pleasure trip, but a must-see for sculptors and architects. Rome offered direct access to classical statuary and the guidance of masters such as Antonio Canova and Pietro Tenerani. Throngs of English, American, French, German, and Russian boarders (students supported by their governments in Rome to study) annually resided in the capital of the Papal States to copy and study the classics of ancient statuary and learn the ropes from Italian and foreign sculptors who had been working and teaching in Rome for years. Artists such as the Danish Thorvaldsen (in the former stables of Piazza Barberini) or the US citizens Thomas Crawford (in Villa Negroni, then also known as Villa Peretti-Montalto, in the area where Termini Station now stands) and Horatio Greenough (who gravitated around the “English Ghetto” between Via del Babuino and Via Margutta before moving to Florence) opened enormous studios where the language of Neoclassicism was adapted to the needs of the young democracies.
At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the prestige of a monument was guaranteed if “conceived in Rome.” This led to the creation of patriotic symbols that we can admire today on different continents.
- Europe: Classical Models and National Identities
France (Paris): Antonio Canova designed and sculpted in Rome the famous group of Cupid and Psyche (1787-1793) and modelled the colossal Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (1802-1806) – the bronze version was cast in Rome by the Righetti brothers in 1811, – works that embody Roman neoclassical perfection, now exhibited at the Louvre.
England (London): The statue of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (Apsley House), the marble version is almost 3.5 meters tall, and was sculpted by Canova in his Roman studio between 1802 and 1806. Napoleon rejected it because he deemed it “too athletic.” After the emperor’s defeat, the British government purchased it and donated it to the Duke of Wellington. Today, it dominates the stairwell of his London residence, Apsley House.
Germany (Berlin): The Monument to Frederick the Great (located on Unter den Linden avenue) was designed by the German sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch, who lived in Rome for over six years (from 1804 to 1811), studying with Canova and Thorvaldsen. It was during his stay in Rome that Rauch refined the monumental, realist style that earned him the commission for this equestrian statue, considered his masterpiece.
Belgium (Brussels): The Equestrian Statue of Godfrey of Bouillon was created by the Belgian sculptor Eugène Simonis. To perfect his technique and study the great equestrian models (such as the Marcus Aurelius on the Capitoline Hill), Simonis lived in Rome between 1829 and 1832, studying under masters such as Bertel Thorvaldsen and Carlo Finelli. It was during his stay in Rome that he developed the monumental style and anatomical precision necessary for this work, which was inaugurated in Brussels in 1848 and is today considered a true symbol of Belgian identity.
Russia (St. Petersburg): It is important to remember that sculptors such as Ivan Martos – of Ukrainian origin and considered one of the greatest exponents of Slavic neoclassicism for the grace and vigor of his works -trained in Rome to create the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky (1818), a colossal bronze group located on Red Square in Moscow, and the marble columns of St. Isaac’s Cathedral were often coordinated by artistic consultants, as Agostino Triscornia, working in Rome.
Greece (Athens): Located in the National Gardens of Athens, the sculptural group of Lord Byron was designed in Rome by Frenchman Henri-Michel-Antoine Chapu and created in marble by the Falguière brothers. Rome was then the preferred place for working with the prized Carrara marble.
- The Americas: The Birth of New Democracies
The young American nations saw the forms modeled in Rome as the ideal symbol of their republican dignity:
United States (Washington, D.C.): Thomas Crawford designed the Statue of Armed Liberty (1855–1857) in Rome, the one that stands atop the dome of Capitol Hill (the House of Representatives in Washington). It features a classical female figure wearing a helmet adorned with an eagle’s head and feathers, a reference to America that often leads people to mistake her for a Native American chief. Her right-hand rests on the hilt of a sword, while her left holds a laurel wreath (a symbol of victory). Journalist Margaret Fuller visited these Roman studios, documenting the genesis of these works and the fiery climate of the early Italian Risorgimento in her famous 27 reports from Italy.
South America: From his studio in Rome, the Italian Pietro Tenerani defined the universal image of Simón Bolívar (1844) for Bogotá, also influencing the monuments to José de San Martín in Argentina and Chile. Tenerani received the commission for the monument: the work was conceived and created in Rome and is considered one of the noblest and most iconographic portraits of Bolívar.
- Orient: Cultural Bridges in the 20th Century
The connection with the Roman school extended to the Far East as a sign of diplomacy and faith:
China (Beijing): The statue of Matteo Ricci, designed and modeled in Rome by Fiorenzo Bacci, stands tall today in the China Millennium Monument (or Altar of the Century): an imposing architectural complex located in Beijing featuring only two foreign figures, both Italians: Marco Polo and Matteo Ricci. This bronze statue depicts the great Jesuit and scientist from the Marche region in period costume from the Ming Dynasty. The work was donated to China to celebrate the cultural dialogue between East and West. The project originated within the Roman academic and artistic context, deeply connected to the figure of Ricci (who studied at the Jesuit cultural temple, the Roman College).
Japan (Kagoshima): The monument to Saint Francis Xavier was designed in Rome by Francesco Nagni in 1949, arriving in Japan as an act of cultural diplomacy to reestablish ties based on faith and culture, rather than old military alliances.
- Rome as a technical and logistical hub
Rome has always offered unique expertise: a network of artisans, trainers, and casters who provided installers and casters from various countries with works that, starting as plaster models, could be completed in the final destination countries and become eternal works (such as the collaboration offered to the African-American Philip Reid, who was commissioned in Washington to cast the Statue of Armed Liberty modeled in Rome by Crawford). These works were then shipped from the port of Civitavecchia, undertaking epic journeys to global destinations.
Rome’s internationalism demonstrates that the world’s great national monuments possess Roman DNA. In the nineteenth century, if a new nation (like the United States or the South American republics) wanted to appear authoritative, it could not use local styles, not yet developed: it had to “speak” the language of Imperial Rome or Classical Greece. Sculpting a national hero in a toga or on a horse inspired by Marcus Aurelius meant saying: “Our history has the same dignity as that of the greats of the past.” Projecting in Rome was not just an aesthetic choice, but an ideological one. This “grammar” was universal because it worked everywhere: in Washington to celebrate freedom, in Bogotá for Bolívar, or in Berlin for Frederick the Great. Rome was the only place in the world capable of providing this universal “translation” of local values into immortal symbols. Relying on Roman studies (such as those of Crawford or Tenerani) ensured that the ideal of that people was “translated” into a form that the entire civilized world could recognize as “eternal.”
Rome therefore exported not only sculptures, but a universal grammar of memory that allowed every nation to see its ideals engraved in the eternity of the classical canon. Linguistic and national barriers fell in the face of the pursuit of “Beauty” and the eternal.
In this way, Rome transformed the world of art into a brotherhood.
