Bartolomeo Cavaceppi's Saint Norbert

Abstract

Cavaceppi's lost statue of Saint Norbert, once erected in stucco near the crossing in St. Peter's as the concluding monument of the Founders of the Church series, is here published in the form of a once-suppressed contemporary print, recently rediscovered. The complex machinations leading to the original commission and the statue's rejection and removal are retraced and discussed. Its conservative and venturesome stylistic and iconographic elements are reviewed in the context of the other founder saints and their descendants. A working list is appended of original productions by the artist, a largely neglected classicizing sculptor-restorer.

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Notes on contributors

Seymour Howard

Seymour Howard has published widely on topics concerned with Neoclassicism and antiquarianism around 1800. He has written monographs on Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, Jacob Merz, and Jacques-Louis David. A selection of his essays dealing with aspects of ancient and modern antiquarianism will appear under the title Antiquity Restored, to be published in the Artibus et historiae monograph series [Department of Art, University of California, Davis, CA 95616].