A statue of Christopher Columbus is installed in Newport, Rhode Island, United States.
History
Formation of Committee
In 1932, a committee was formed to explore the idea of erecting a statue of Christopher Columbus in Newport as a gift from all the people of Italian heritage in the community. It appears that this committee grew out of the Italian Brotherhood Benefit Society of Newport, which had been incorporated by the General Assembly by an act passed on Feb. 5, 1897.
The statue was to be erected to commemorate the contributions made by the Italian explorer. Donations were solicited from people of Italian heritage, but because of the economic crisis of the 1930s and the unstable international situation into the 1940s, the committee's activities were suspended until a more opportune time. The money that had been collected was put into a savings account and then invested in U.S. Defense Bonds in the name of the committee.
Early in the 1950s, the plan was reactivated, and each of the three United Italian Societies was asked to select four members each to serve on the Columbus Monument Committee. By that time, the Sons of Italy, Lodge Progresso e Civilita No. 391 (founded in 1941), later called the Forum Lodge Sons of Italy No. 391, and the Sons of Italy, St. Catherine of Siena Lodge, had joined the Italian Brotherhood Benefit Society in the endeavor. The monument committee announced its plans at a meeting at the end of January 1953 after working quietly for several years.
At some point, this committee commissioned the world-renowned Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli in Florence, Italy, to create the statue. Marinelli was the cousin of Pasquale Russo, father of Gabriel D. Russo, and Donato F. D’Andrea, who was president of the Italian Brotherhood Benefit Society. Marinelli, born in 1887 near Perugia, established his own foundry in Florence in 1905. His foundry specialized in bronzes by contemporary sculptors as well as meeting the high demand for art-quality replicas of ancient and Renaissance masterpieces. The original was sculpted by Giovanni Cappelletti.
The foundry was unable to provide records of the transaction because it had lost all of its records of previous works during the Florence flood of 1966.
When the statue was actually ordered is unknown; however, in January 1953, the monument committee received a scale model of the Columbus statue. A photograph in The Newport Daily News on Jan. 30, 1953, shows Gabriel D. Russo with the model. It remains in the family today. The committee also discussed various locations for the statue's placement and decided on its present location at the intersection of Memorial Boulevard and Bellevue Avenue.
Creation of statue
What the foundry wrought was a 5-foot, 8-inch life-size likeness of the explorer in bronze weighing 700 pounds, a sculptured bronze fence with relief panels of crosses and panels depicting Columbus’ ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, as well as a panel showing him greeting the Indians upon his arrival, also weighing 700 pounds. The work also included a 1,300-pound base consisting of four marble outer wall slabs, one with an inscription, “Christopher Columbus, Discoverer of America, October 12, 1492, Erected by the Italian community of Newport, Rhode Island, October 12, 1953,” and a top slab to be assembled here. The name of the artist who created the prototype is on the statue; it reads “Modello (model or prototype), G. Cappelletti.”