Aristodemo Costoli

Aristodemo Costoli was born in Florence on the 6th of September 1803. At the age of twelve, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he studied painting. Subsequently he devoted himself exclusively to sculpture, enjoying many successes nationally and internationally.

His most important works, Monument to Galileo, preserved in the Museo della Specola, and Pegasus, made for the Boboli Gardens, are kept in Florence. His works are preserved in various Italian cities such as Genoa, Ancona and Pisa. In 1843, he undertook the restoration of Michelangelo’s David, although the cleaning that he carried out proved to be harmful due to the lack of technical knowledge of the period.

For the Monumental Cemetery of Verona, he created the statue of the Virgin kept in the Canossa Chapel in 1864, a rare concession to a sacred subject rarely permitted in the cemetery. He died in Florence on the 22nd of June 1871.