Giovanni Ceccarini (1790 - 1861)


Descrizione del Carro inventato da Giovanni Ceccarini scultore romano. Estratto dall’Efemeridi letterarie di Roma Luglio 1822 Roma nella stamperia De Romanis, 1822


§ 4to, (235 x 160); 6 pp, 4 folding plates representing a cart, original green cardboard, an excellent. wide- margined copy. First edition, exceedingly rare, only three copies recorded.

The sculptor Giovanni Ceccarini, a pupil of Canova, worked in Rome, where he produced several works, some of them on projects by Valadier. He also published two works, both of them extremely rare: the present one, for which one copy only is reported in World Catalogue and a “Lettera di G. Ceccarini scultore al signor G. Vanelli di carrara relativa al granito dell'isola del Giglio”,About Ceccarini’s inventions Spadini writes : “Sembra, inoltre, che avesse inventato un mezzo per trasportare i marmi più pesanti (Hubert)”, while Bruni gives some more information: “Working for great names in architecture and sculpture evidently stimulated his entrepreneurial spirit to overcome the technical difficulties that faced those who had to work and transport large blocks of marble. In those years he set up a factory, inside which the transformation of the marble took place, near the Giuditta, in today's area of the Isola Tiberina. Here, among other things, he installed “a marble saw, made up of twelve blades” which, as the documents of the time report, allowed “great savings of human life” since until then this heavy work had been carried out by arms power. ... A profound connoisseur of the techniques and materials of his trade and a great innovator, the remarkable echo that aroused the invention and construction of a cart for transporting large blocks of marble from the Tiber to the city testifies.” (Bruni, translated).
Ref; Pasqualina Spadini Giovanni Ceccarini, DBI; G. Hubert, La sculpture dans l'Italie napoléonienne, Paris 1964, p. 414 (cited by Spadini); Emanuela Bruni Nuova Accademia Tuscolana