Francesco Antonio Franzoni

Francesco Antonio Franzoni (Carrara 1734 — Rome 1818) was an Italian sculptor, born and trained in the marble city of Carrara, who settled in Rome in the 1760s and established a workshop that specialised in the restoration of antique Roman sculpture, for which there was an insatiable demand, scarcely supplied by redoubled efforts at excavations. He worked on restoring, completing and refinishing sculptures destined for the Museo Pio-Clementino and provided marble revetments and sculptural details for its interiors, notably the "biga" (two-horse chariot) assembled in 1788 from antique elements, [Including what was probably a votive marble chariot of the first century CE, which had been used as a "cathedra" at San Marco (Touring Club Italiano, "Roma" 669.)] in the "sala del Biga" of the Braccio Nuovo. He worked for Pope Pius VI, for whom he filled a room with animal sculptures, some made up from antique fragments, in the Palazzetto del Belvedere; he also worked for the papal family at Palazzo Braschi.

Some other sculptors in Rome renowned for their restorations

* Orfeo Boselli
* Ippolito Buzzi
* Bartolomeo Cavaceppi
* Ercole Ferrata
* Francesco Fontana
* Francesco Nocchieri
* Giovanni Battista Piranesi
* Vincenzo Pacetti

References

External links

* [http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=3473 Getty Museum: Francesco Antonio Franzoni] : marble side table and drawing