Monument to Vamba

This monument is inspired to the ‘evangelic episode’ (Marco, X, 14) of “sinite parvulos venire ad me” (let the children come to me) to celebrate the memory of Luigi Bertelli called Vamba, founder of the weekly magazine for boys and girls “Il Giornalino della Domenica”/”The Sunday Journal” and author of the famous “Giornalino di Gian Burrasca”/”Gian Burrasca diary” (1920). It is the model for the bronze placed on Vamba’s tomb in the Cemetery of the Porte Sante behind the Church of San Miniato in Florence. For the model, Andreotti took his friend and brother-in-law Aldo Carpi for the face of Christ and one of Carpi’s sons for the child. In the three-year period 1920-23 Andreotti worked on different sacred subjects, “in a Franciscan atmosphere” (Pizzorusso/Lucchesi, 1997) of rediscovery of religiosity and renewed faith, also due to the intense relationship which connected him to Aldo Carpi. Here Andreotti simplifies his own style even more, by still looking at Maurice Denis, master of shapes and contents, who is also the author of a Sinite parvulos painted in 1900 for which he had all his family pose.

Floor:
Room: Mature Works
Year: 1921
Author: Libero Andreotti