|
 I
have read that they are not even bronze, but rather
“fused iron.” Since the only metallurgist I know is too
busy smelting at the moment to explain the difference to
me, I shall continue to call them “bronze” just the way
Neapolitans do—quite simply, they are the cavalli di bronzo,
the “bronze horses.” The term refers to the two statues
mounted on the pillars of the east entrance to the
gardens of the Royal Palace
in Naples. That is not exactly an out of the way spot,
but the average tourist gaze is likely to sweep past it
and focus on the huge Maschio
Angioino castle right across the way; thus, people
tend not to pay too much attention to these statues—to
my knowledge, the only obvious chunks of Imperial Russia
on display in Naples.
Rightly,
the
statues
are
called i domatori di
cavalli—the horse tamers. They are the work of
Russian sculptor Peter
Clodt von Jürgensburg
(1805-67) and are similar to two of the sculptor’s four
statues on the Anichkov bridge over the Fontanka river
in St. Petersburg. Strictly speaking, the Neapolitan
horses are not copies, not replicas of the statues in
Russia, but similar to them and, in fact, predate the
ones on the Russian bridge. In the early 1840s, Clodt
von Jürgensburg did the original four for the
bridge, at which point Czar Nicolas I told the sculptor
that he “made finer horses than any prize stallion
does.” The Czar liked the statues so much that he gave
them away as gifts: two went to Prussian King Frederick
William IV and are still in the Heinrich von Kleist park
in Berlin. The other two came to Naples as a gift to Ferdinand II in 1846 on the
occasion of a state visit by the czar to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
The sculptor then cast four definitive versions of his
Horse Tamers for the bridge in St. Petersburg; they were
installed in 1851 and are still there, having survived
even the ravages of World War II.
The horses in Naples are reared up;
they look wild and as yet untamed, while the
horse-tamers, themselves, are as naked as the
horses. It all looks savage and somewhat
“un-Italian,” —let’s say Russian and steppe-like —at
least compared to other stately and totally tamed
equestrian statues in the city (the two mounted versions of
Charles III and his son,
Ferdinand I in the square on the west side of
the same royal palace, for example.) But the
inspiration is very classical; the statues are
variations of the colossal Roman marbles of Castor
and Pollux, the Heavenly Twins, posed with their
steeds at the fountain on the Quirinal Hill in Rome.
The Horse Tamers in Naples were cleaned and restored
in 2002 (which, incidentally, is the last time I
have seen that particular entrance to the gardens
open).
There was a reason for the good
relations between Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of
Naples in the 1840s that impelled the czar to give
away two of his prize monuments. Czar Nicolas’
grandfather, Czar Paul I, had signed Russia up in
the so-called “Second Coalition (formed in 1798)
against the forces of Republican France. The other
members of the Coalition were Great Britain,
Austria, Portugal, Naples and, surprisingly, Turkey
(the Ottoman Empire). For a while, then, the Russian
and Turks put aside their centuries of dispute to
make common cause against the French. A joint
Russo-Turkish fleet joined the forces of Admiral
Nelson in the southern Mediterranean. The immediate
goal was to dislodge the French-supported Neapolitan Republic
(proclaimed in January, 1799) and reinstall the
Bourbon monarchy to the throne of Naples. A body of
five- or six-hundred Russians and Turks landed on
the Adriatic coast, having crossed from Corfu, to
assist the Royalist forces under Ruffo in retaking the
kingdom. They were successful, and the Russian and
Turkish commanders both signed the armistice
agreement by which the Bourbons (in this case, King
Ferdinand I) were restored in Naples. One
grandfather had helped another, and both grandsons
were now still absolute monarchs, still resisting
the gathering forces of reform at mid-century.
That’s worth a couple of statues.
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main index ©
Jeff
Matthews 2002-2012 entry
Oct 2008, rev. Oct 2010