Monument to Nicola Spedalieri

The work consists of a tall granite base, resting on two steps and sloping upward, divided into four registers by string courses. The front of the base is adorned at the top with a laurel wreath intertwined with palm trees and bearing the symbol of Trinacria in the centre.

The monument to Nicola Spedalieri, Sicilian abbot, philosopher and theologian (1740-1795), was created between 1898 and 1900 by the Palermo sculptor Mario Rutelli (1859-1941).

The proposal to erect the monument dates back to 1882, at the initiative of the lawyer Giuseppe Cimbali, a native of Bronte like Spedalieri, who compared his fellow citizen to great figures of free thought such as Arnaldo da Brescia, Galileo Galilei, and Giordano Bruno. This desire began to materialize only in 1893, when the Honorary Committee was formed to oversee the celebrations for the centenary of the abbot's death. It announced a first competition for the Roman monument in 1894, which was unsuccessful. The second competition, announced the following year, was won by Rutelli.

Due to a series of ideological and political oppositions and the difficulty of finding a suitable location, the planned inauguration did not take place, and the work was clandestinely discovered by the police headquarters without any ceremony on November 23, 1903, at 2:30 a.m. in piazza Vidoni. Due to traffic problems, a long debate began over the statue's relocation, which lasted for a long time, until 1951, when the monument to Terenzio Mamiani was moved to piazza Sforza Cesarini, where it had previously stood. The monument had since been moved to via Acciaioli.

Above the high pedestal stands a bronze sculpture of the Sicilian philosopher. He is full-length, with his left leg slightly bent forward, wearing eighteenth-century clothing: culottes and a partially buttoned frock coat, complemented by a cape that falls down his left hip. His right hand is slightly raised, and in his left the philosopher holds a book entitled RIGHTS / OF MAN, alluding to his most famous work, On the Rights of Man (1791), in which Spedalieri supported the Christian foundation of the concepts promulgated by the French Revolution and indicated popular sovereignty as the cornerstone of government power.

The sculpture originally rested its left hand on a staff, an attribute no longer present today.

Photo: Monument to Nicola Spedalieri, photo by Capitoline Superintendency of Cultural Heritage