Description
The Monument to Domenico Chiodo is the marble statue in Piazza Chiodo, in front of the entrance to the La Spezia Arsenal, honouring the officer and engineer who designed it: the man to whom the modern city owes, in large part, its very shape.
The statue, carved in the round from Carrara marble, is one of the last works of the Genoese sculptor Santo Varni. Chiodo wears the uniform of a general of the Military Engineers and carries the symbols of his two professions.
In his left hand he holds a sabre, as a soldier; in his right he grips a pair of compasses, as an engineer, and he leans on the sheets of the Arsenal plans. Dedicatory inscriptions run around the plain marble base, among them one from the city's Artisans' Brotherhood.
His story begins in 1857, when Cavour asked him to study a shipyard in the gulf. Instead of a modest facility, Chiodo proposed a great arsenal, and Cavour saw its value at once: the government set aside 36 million lire of the time.
The works lasted from 1862 to 1869. Chiodo also used the geological map of the gulf drawn up by Giovanni Capellini, a native of La Spezia, and visited the shipyards on the Seine and in Marseille, but his design has an independent, neoclassical character.
To make room for the Arsenal, La Spezia changed its face: the walls disappeared, old churches were demolished and the hamlet of San Vito was razed to the ground, while new avenues such as Viale Italia and Viale Garibaldi were laid out.
Chiodo also designed the arsenal of Taranto and drew up the plan to modernise the one in Venice. Sent to represent Italy at the opening of the Suez Canal, he travelled as far as Sudan, where he caught malaria: he died in La Spezia in 1870, aged 46.
The city wanted to remember him straight away: a subscription among the people of La Spezia quickly raised the funds, and the statue was unveiled on 10 July 1878.
The statue, carved in the round from Carrara marble, is one of the last works of the Genoese sculptor Santo Varni. Chiodo wears the uniform of a general of the Military Engineers and carries the symbols of his two professions.
In his left hand he holds a sabre, as a soldier; in his right he grips a pair of compasses, as an engineer, and he leans on the sheets of the Arsenal plans. Dedicatory inscriptions run around the plain marble base, among them one from the city's Artisans' Brotherhood.
His story begins in 1857, when Cavour asked him to study a shipyard in the gulf. Instead of a modest facility, Chiodo proposed a great arsenal, and Cavour saw its value at once: the government set aside 36 million lire of the time.
The works lasted from 1862 to 1869. Chiodo also used the geological map of the gulf drawn up by Giovanni Capellini, a native of La Spezia, and visited the shipyards on the Seine and in Marseille, but his design has an independent, neoclassical character.
To make room for the Arsenal, La Spezia changed its face: the walls disappeared, old churches were demolished and the hamlet of San Vito was razed to the ground, while new avenues such as Viale Italia and Viale Garibaldi were laid out.
Chiodo also designed the arsenal of Taranto and drew up the plan to modernise the one in Venice. Sent to represent Italy at the opening of the Suez Canal, he travelled as far as Sudan, where he caught malaria: he died in La Spezia in 1870, aged 46.
The city wanted to remember him straight away: a subscription among the people of La Spezia quickly raised the funds, and the statue was unveiled on 10 July 1878.