Sculptor G. Benetti 1873
The Piaggio Tomb is situated in the LI niche of the lower southern arcade. Giovanni Battista Piaggio, who is buried here, was a rich ship-owner, whose important role in society is expressed by the professional symbols -the anchor, the ropes, the sand-glass, the globe, the chart that the sculptor Giuseppe Benetti put on the sides of the deceased's bust hosted in the lunette, which surmounts the architecture in Renaissance style of the monument. As a representative of the upper middle class he couldn't die without leaving memories of his social role: Benetti, in order to meet this requirement, represented the widow coming out of the chapel with a prayer-book in her hand. Bringing the mourning in an everyday-life dimension Benetti created a work in accordance with the dictates of the Realism bourgeois.
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