Sculptor From Verona

Place: Verona

Born: 1812

Death: 1879

Biography:

Salesio Pegrassi was an Italian sculptor born in Verona on November 12, 1812. He died on December 6, 1879. Pegrassi completed a large number of bas reliefs, funereal monuments, statuettes, and other decorative work. His reliefs in stone of animals, birds, and plants were highly prized. He first apprenticed under the painter Giovanni Caliari and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona. One of his first carvings was a Deposition from the Cross on an altar in a church of Legnago. He obtained many commissions from abroad, including the patronage of William John Bankes. He sculpted a Virgin Mary for the facade of the church of Oppeano and an angel for the church of Valeggio sul Mincio. Briefly forsaking his Catholic faith for an evangelical faith, he survived a suicide attempt in 1877 and returned to work despite physical pain. He had many pupils in his native Verona.