- Tommaso Righi
Tommaso Righi (1727–1802) was an Italian sculptor and stuccator with a practice in
Rome . His marble and stucco funeral monument to Carlo Pio Balestra (died 1776), patron of the Church of Santi Luca e Martina, in theRoman Forum , [Touring Club Italiano, "Roma e dintorni" 1965:124.] is probably his most prominent commission. His monument of cardinal Camillo Paolucci (died 1763) stands in a chapel ofSan Marcello al Corso , where its design was constrained by its having to form a pendant to the baroque monument facing it, of Fabrizio Paolucci, byPietro Bracci (1726). A great work, less often seen, is his altarpiece in the Church of S. Maria del Priorato, the chapel of the Villa of theSovereign Military Order of Malta : Piranesi provided the design, [TCI, "Roma e dintorni" 417.] and Righi executed the great globe surrounded by putti in clouds, and Saint Basil in Glory supported by two angels. His bas-relief panel appears among a host by others, in the central "Sala degli Imperatori" of theGalleria Borghese , part of the rearrangement of the interiors of the Villa Borghese undertaken in 1782 by prince Marcantonio Borghese. [TCI, "Roma e dintorni" 276.]In
Vilnius the main facade of the rigorously neoclassicalVilnius Cathedral is adorned with sculptures of the Four Evangelists by Righi.One of his pupils was
Giuseppe Ceracchi , sculptor of a portrait ofGeorge Washington and passionate republican.Notes
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