Bruno, with “burning” black eyes and a flowing beard: this is how the charismatic and striking Asti sculptor Materno Giribaldi, born in 1870, brother of the parish priest of Viarigi, Don Raffaele, was described.
He began his career within Milan’s Scapigliatura movement, continued as a student of Ernesto Bazzaro and Leonardo Bistolfi (the latter being the author of Charity, located at the Altare della Patria in Rome), and took part in several competitions for monuments and exhibitions.
He can be considered one of the most interesting exponents of Art Nouveau in Italy and Brazil. In 1904, he ranked among the top finalists in the competition organized by the city of Arezzo for the monument to Petrarch. In 1907, he returned to Asti where, in his studio on Via Natta, he created public monuments, busts, and funerary works.
Among his many commissions, notable examples include the monuments for the Asti tombs of the Zo family (1912) and the Ballario family (1917), as well as the fountain in Piazza Medici for the inauguration of the new Cantarana aqueduct.
In 1922, shortly after his victory in the competition for the Monument to the Fallen to be erected in Asti, the result was annulled in accordance with the opinion of the regional section of the National Fascist Party.
In 1925, following this unfortunate episode, he emigrated to Brazil, where he taught modeling and sculpture at the School of Arts and Crafts in São Paulo. He presumably died there in 1951 at the age of 81, after completing a monumental mausoleum for the Jafet family in the Consolação Cemetery in São Paulo.
Now, documented information is arriving from Brazil thanks to the research initiated by Stefano Masino, surveyor and author of Racconti Astigiani.
The Consul General of Brazil in Milan, Ambassador Eduardo Dos Santos, contacted the young researcher Eva Catelli, who will publish her findings in an essay following her visit to Asti in 2020.
FEMALE FIGURES, FUNERARY ART, AND THE FOUNTAIN IN PIAZZA MEDICI
A complete catalogue of his works does not yet exist, but some of his best-known works in Palazzo Mazzetti and the Asti area can be recalled:
MATERNITY
A sculpture on a female theme depicting a mother bending down to kiss the head of her dead child, with the cursive inscription “M. Giribaldi” engraved on the right side of the base. Owned by the Cassa di Risparmio di Asti, it stands at the entrance to Palazzo Mazzetti and dates back to the postwar period, when the building was renovated.
HALF BUST
Located on the second floor of Palazzo Mazzetti, it depicts a fully sculpted female figure with ripples of drapery covering her shoulders, closed eyes, and a face lifted and turned to the left. The woman has not been identified, but the sculptor often drew inspiration from the features of his daughter Glicinia. The signature appears in capital letters on the right shoulder.
FOUNTAIN IN PIAZZA MEDICI
Located near the Troyana Tower, just a short walk from Corso Alfieri. It was created in 1908 by Giribaldi based on a design by the Asti engineer Luigi Medici del Vascello, whose family financed the Cantarana aqueduct in 1890, making the arrival of drinking water in the city possible. The muscular man trying to stop a jet of water symbolizes the efforts made to channel the force of water.
The first funerary monument in Asti signed by Giribaldi dates to 1910 and was recently restored thanks to the patronage of Laura Spagnolini, an official of the Piedmont Region, and her mother Italia Bosia. It consists of a cross with a Carrara marble medallion depicting Cristina Ballario-Rolla; on the granite base appears another medallion portraying her father Secondo Ballario, who died seven years later.
A splendid female figure, accompanied by floral decorations, rises on the right side of the cross.
The Monument to the Fallen in Viarigi, which belongs to a late Liberty style aligned with that of other commemorative monuments of the Great War, bears the dedicatory inscription beneath the relief of the soldier wearing a helmet and handing a flag to the allegorical figure of the Motherland; in the lower section, plaques were later added to commemorate the civilian victims of the 1944 air raid as well.
