Utente:AtlantisMar/Sandbox

The Statue of Christ the Redeemer (Italian: Cristo Redentore di Maratea) is an imposing sculpture built on top of Mount St. Biagio in Maratea (PZ) a town in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata.

The Statue was a Count Stefano Rivetti of Valcervo’s idea. He was the promoter and financier of the project execution.

The sculpture was created by the florentine sculptor Bruno Innocenti.

The entire Statue was completed in 1965.

History

The Inventor

The idea of making the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Maratea dawned upon Count Stefano Rivetti di Val Cervo, during a trip in Brazil, while he was flying over the Corcovado. When he came back to Italy he asked Bruno Innocenti, professor of sculpture at the Istituto d’Arte of Florence, to make the statue that now dominates the Bay of Maratea. The statue has now become its identifying symbol.

The Count got to Maratea in 1953. His idea was to start an industrial business promoted by the Cassa del Mezzogiorno. So he realized a famous manufacturing district with buildings located between Maratea and Praia a Mare (Calabria).

In addition, he created in the area, the most modern Southern zootechnical firm producing milk and eggs, and a fruit-and-vegetable and nursery-gardening firm called “Pamafi”.

The Count Stefano was both cultured and creative. He was an art and nature lover and he understood the tourism potential of the Tyrrhenian town.

The Count undertook various initiatives having  the pupose of promoting Maratea, nationally and internationally.

During those years also built one of the most charming and luxurious Italian hotels, the "Santavenere Hotel" and establishing the first Southern Italy "Tourist Company", the Azienda Autonoma di Soggiorno e Turismo.

In the sixties he created the "Association for the Development of Industrial Unit" and became its president. He involved in this project the various municipalities on the Gulf of Policastro, the various provincial agencies and the Calabria, Basilicata and Campania Regions. His purpose was to develop an overarching programme of infrastructural projects, such as ports, roads, bridges, etc., in order to facilitate the growth both of new industrial settlements and “touristic development centres”.

The big Statue of Christ the Redeemer, which Count Stefano Rivetti donated to the Maratea’s people by an official act, was meant to represent the Count’s religious faith and the rebirth of Maratea and of Southern Italy, the land he loved so much.

The Sculptor[edit source]

Bruno Innocenti was born in Florence on 4 February 1906.

He studied sculpture under the guidance of Libero Andreotti; later he became his assistant, and on his death he took his chair as professor of sculpture at the Istituto d’Arte of Florence. He held this post until 1975.

From 1925 onwards, he took part in various collective exhibitions both in Italy (Florence, Turin, Milan, the Quadriennali of Rome, and the Biennali of Venice) and abroad (Paris, Nice, Athens, Munich, Vienna, Warsaw, Bucharest, Budapest, Sofia, Sydney, Düsseldorf, New York, and Sudafrica). Between 1925 and 1949, he also held a great number of one-man exhibitions in several Italian cities; the Biennale of Venice of 1938 assigned a room to him.

In 1946, he stayed in New York for about a year, and held a one-man exhibition at the Architectural League; a few years later, a one-man exhibition of works of his was held in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum.

Beginning from the nineteen-fifties, he stopped exhibiting, and devoted himself entirely to sculpture and teaching. He also produced several monumental works: at the Law Courts of Milan; at the location of the “Centrale” of Milan; a series of Crucifixes for the Law Courts of Pisa; the “Assunta” bell for Giotto’s Campanile in Florence; several funerary works in Italy and the USA; and the great statue of Christ the Redeemer in Maratea.

In 1971, he returned to his exhibiting activity, at the Galleria La Gradiva in Florence and in some collective exhibitions in France. He also took part in the Bronzetto Exhibition in Padua.

In 1985, the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence, of which he was a lifelong member, organised a one-man exhibition of drawings and sculptures of his.

After his death, which took place in Florence in 1986, several works of his took part in the exhibition “Tridente Tre” at the Galleria dell’Oca.

The Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe of the Uffizi Gallery, to which he had donated about nine hundred drawings made by him in the nineteen-twenties, organised a one-man exhibition of drawings and sculptures of his in 1991.

A great frieze, Apollo e le Muse, which he had made in 1933 for the proscenium of the Teatro Comunale of Florence, was recently restored and placed in the foyer of the theatre.

During the last few years, works of his have taken part in exhibitions in Milan, Faenza, Montopoli, San Miniato, Bologna, Mesola, and Florence. One-man exhibitions of works of his have been held in Florence, Paris, and San Miniato.

Reasons why the Statue of Christ the Redeemer was built

The Count Stefano Rivetti and the Professor Bruno Innocenti had frequent, fruitful exchanges of views about the meaning to be expressed by the statue.

The statue, when viewed from a distance, was to look as if it faced the sea; but it would actually be oriented towards the inland and the Basilica, facing mankind, because:

“God became a man for us.”

It would not rest on a pedestal, because:

“Jesus came among us in humility, to be with us.”

Its feet would be bare and would rest directly on the ground, because:

“Jesus came poor, but shows us the way.”

Its arms would be open in a broad gesture of invocation towards the sky, because:

“Christ in his infinite mercy unites us to the Almighty God.”

Its face would be young, serene, without any trace of suffering, utterly timeless, because:

“Christ is Resurrection.”

The tunic and the visible left foot leans forward gives momentum and sweetness to the statue from the observer perspective.

The arms up in the air slightly bent, with a mantle on his shoulders, make it is not clear from afar which way he is facing.

The making of the Statue

Count Stefano Rivetti asked the Florentine sculptor Bruno Innocenti to make the sculpture; then Bruno Innocenti often went to Maratea to carry out inspections and studying the implementation of the Christ.The work began at once. It took 8 years to build the Statue.

“The first ideas of the statue were in 1957 worked out by me through studies and sketches made on the spot, and after a careful evaluation of all the characteristics of the location. The integration of such a gigantic work in the landscape, in that particular landscape, was the problem on which my preliminary studies were chiefly focused”.

Bruno Innocenti

In 1960 the study and realization of models began. He choice a model 1.20 metres tall, among a great number of others. Later he developed a draft of 5 metre-size that is ¼ of the final size.

In 1961 there was a division of this “large model” into 12 pieces, in order to enlarge them to the final size and obtain the respective plaster moulds.

On December 7, 1963 the Local Government approves the installation of the Christ the Redeemer Statue which replaced a memorial cross set on a hill. The cross was moved to another site.

In 1964 the Engineer Luigi Musumeci realized the structural project of the great statue. He started to build the reinforcement in concrete and iron, fixed to the foundation dug into the rock of the mountain . More than 14 tons of iron that became the bearing skeleton structure it needed. In the same year of all the plaster moulds (several hundreds, in different sizes) were shipped to Maratea.

In 1964  the entire casting of the statue (using a mixture of white cement and flakes of white marble) it was completed.

In 1965 the general chiselling and finishing of the entire surface carried out directly by Bruno Innocenti.

Before the Christ the Redeemer

On Mount San Biagio stand the ruins of the ancient town of Maratea, uninhabited today. In 1806 the ancient fortified town was attacked and destroyed by a contingent of four thousand five hundred French soldiers. In 1907, this event was remembered with the installation of an iron cross, placed on the highest point of the mountain. This cross was constantly restored since, attracting lightning, it was often damaged.

In 1941 the Mayor of Maratea, Biagio Vitolo, he built a new memorial cross in concrete, to be installed in place of the iron.

In 1965 the memorial cross in concrete was moved and replaced by the statue of the Christ of Maratea.

Memorial stone behind the Statue there is a lookout from which you can admire a Coastal landscape of Maratea. Just under the shoulders of the statue is placed a small plaque with embossed characters in latin:

(LA)

"Deo Gratias Agens / Stephanus Rivetti / Valcervus Comes / Hoc Simulacrum / Posuit / A. D. MCMLXV"

The building

The Size

The Statue is built on the highest point of Mount St. Biagio. The top of the mountain protrudes overhanging for several hundred meters overhanging the port of Maratea.

The Statue is 21.20 metres from the head to the feet (it has not pedestal); the spread of the arms is 19.75 metres; the head is 3 metres from the chin to the top and weighs about 500 tons.

Inside the statue is inserted an irons stair toward the top where is an invisible opening from the ground, the point where you placed the lightning rod.

The iron stair has the function to make possible occasional access for maintenance of the statue and to monitor the functionality of the lightning rod.

When the Statue was built, it was - in size -second in the world after the Christ of Rio De Janeiro.

The Christ appereance[edit source]

The face of Christ the Redeemer is obviously different from the classic iconography of Jesus. The statue's head has short hair, and beard is barely visible. The arms are open wide in a gesture reminiscent of the Lord's Prayer, with his right arm slightly higher than the left.

Innocenti was careful to ensure that the figure of the statue did not constitute a dissonant element into the surrounding environment, but nestled as much as possible with the landscape. The color and the architectural lines were also not created arbitrarily, but evoke elements of Maratea wild landscape.

It is possible that the whiteness of the material out of which the statue will be made will remind us of the white shores against which the sea dashes in the many inlets of the nearby gulfs, where the whiteness of the scree dramatically contrasts with the incomparable colour of this sea and the lush green of the sloping hillsides. And the forceful lines of the statue were suggested to me by the powerful towers that are scattered like lighthouses on this coast.

[Bruno Innocenti, 1965]

The Redeemer in the movies

The Christ of Maratea appear in some Italian movies, “Ogni lasciato è perso” with the comedian Piero Chiambretti and "Basilicata Coast to Coast" directed by Rocco Papaleo.

In the first movie, the protagonist goes up to the mountain to ask for grace to the giant statue. The view of the Statue opens the first frame of "Basilicata coast to coast", and its image was also used in the poster of the movie.

Details

The Statue is bent slightly forward and create an optical illusion giving to the people the impression, that the monument has an eye to the sea, while in reality looks towards the basilica of St. Biagio and the hinterland.

In 2004 was born the Christ of Maratea Onlus Foundation by Chiara Rivetti of Val Cervo, the daughter of Count Stefano. The Christ of Maratea Foundation is a nonprofit entity created in order to cooperate in the maintenance, protection and promotion of the Statue, element of strong attraction of the cultural and religious tourism.

In 2009, a camera footage in the area of the statue has been used in advertising of the Culture Week.

In 2011 it was established in Maratea a committee for the organization of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Statue.

In 2013,  from 23 to 28 July, on the occasion of the "World Youth Day", held in Rio de Janeiro, Maratea, thanks to the presence of Christ the Redeemer Statue – creating a telematic link with Rio de Janeiro and the Christ of Corcovado - it was chosen among the few Italian places for young people who could not reach the Brazilian city venue.

In 2014 the Foundation Christ of Maratea Onlus opened its website where it can get correct and documented historical and artistic informations, images, updates on the history of the statue.

On 14^th June 2015, Maratea celebrated the Redeemer in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Statue of Christ, an event which ended with a concert of chamber music in the “Piazza Mercato” featured by the opera singer Katia Ricciarelli.

In 2015, the Statue of Christ has been awarded a certificate of excellence from TripAdvisor, recording 497 reviews of which 308 "excellent" and 148 "very good" . The statue has been also awarded the first place in the attractions section in Maratea.