Friday, June 5, 2015

Victor Hugo

Monument to Victor by Lucien Pallez, piazzale Victor Hugo, Rome

Monument to Victor Hugo by Lucien Pallez, 1905
Piazzale Victor Hugo
Rome, September 2010

“In 1903 Emperor William II of Germany donated to the Italian State a Monument to Goethe by Gustav Eberlein; the poet is shown standing on a colossal Corinthian capital and is surrounded by statues portraying characters of his works Iphigenia in Tauris, Mignon and Faust. Two years later the Romans watched the arrival of a French reply to the German gift: a monument to Victor Hugo by Lucien Pallez; because the French writer's association with Rome was rather loose (he visited the city when he was six) the inscription quoted a speech he made to praise Garibaldi.” (Villa Borghese, A Rome Art Lover's Web Page)