2 – MONUMENT TO PELLEGRINO ROSSI (ENG)

The work was commissioned in 1854 from Pietro Tenerani by Duke Mario Massimo di Rignano, who wished to replace the commemorative shrine for the politician in the Church of San Lorenzo in Damaso. The original shrine had been ordered in 1849 by Pope Pius IX to commemorate the assassination attempt on Rossi the previous year. While the model was ready in 1854, it took several years to translate it into marble. Consequently, the monument was erected posthumously in 1876, sculpted by Scipione Jardella.

The piece depicts the jurist Rossi seated and draped in a heavy cloak. On December 4, 1978, a bomb explosion severely damaged the monument, and restoration efforts were only completed in May 1985. Decades later, in 2006, vandals attacked it with hammers, breaking the heads off all the figures in the reliefs at the base. In subsequent years, the statue was further defaced by graffiti from various “writers”.