Genio della Morte

Genio della Morte, of which this plaster cast reproduces the bust, is part of the Monumento funebre di Clemente XII (1792) by Antonio Canoca; it is the embodiment of the beauty so highly praised by Winckelmann in his writings about neoclassical ideals. The Busto di papa Clemente XII is part of the same monument and is also in the collection of Galleria d'Arte Moderna Achille Forti. Both casts were donated to the city authorities by descendants of the Pindemonte branch of the Rezzonico family to which Pope Clement belonged. Genio della morte - which in the original is winged and holds a reversed torch in its hand, a symbol of the extinction of earthly life - represents one of Canova's most audacious flights of iconographic invention: a figure on the cusp between a Christian angel and a classical divinity. Unknown artist, copy of Antonio Canova.