Love and Fidelity

myminifactory

Pietro Freccia, a sculptor born in 1814 and tragically deceased at thirty-two, spent his short yet promising career chiseling marble from an early age. His rise to fame was abruptly halted by a devastating fall while working on the Columbus Monument in Genoa's Piazza Acquaverde in 1854. Two years later, he succumbed to the severity of his injuries. Freccia's life was marked by incredible potential, as evident in his works influenced by Lorenzo Bartolini's mastery. His meticulous analysis of truth and classical themes would have led to distinct stylistic outcomes if not for destiny's cruel hand. In one of his masterpieces, Love and Fidelity from 1840, preserved at the Modern Art Gallery of Palazzo Pitti in Florence, Freccia's language is laid bare. A child personifies love, sitting on an ideal trunk with a gaze cast backward, veiled by tears restrained, toward fidelity - a lifeless dog lying at its feet. The quiver, once full of arrows, lies abandoned, symbolizing love's inability to strike with its unpredictable projectiles. The anacreontic theme and structural construction of the figure adhere to neoclassical poetics while conveying a warm, intimate sense that seeps from within the icy marble. This makes human pain tangible in the mythological character, visible as it confronts the figuration of fidelity - a dog resting its head on the child's foot in a final yearning for life, seeking refuge in this physical contact to understand the cruel fate imposed upon all living beings.