Giovanni da Verrazzano
By Ettore Ximenes,
dedicated 1909
Bibliography, Out-takes,
Discussion Questions,
Suggested Readings
New York Times 10/7/1909 on the unveiling.
The parade stretched for 2.5 miles, with about 25,000 people marching
and the "wheelmen of some twenty bicycle clubs." About 200,000
spectators lined the parade route and another 100,000 waited at Battery
Park for the unveiling. The Times described Verrazzano as
a "heroic, rugged bronze." The allegorical figure was "Truth, stern of
face and bearing in either hand a naked sword and a flaming torch."
New York Times 8/21/1938: Jewell, Edward
Alden. "Winds of Scorn for Our Statues": "that sickening bronze snipped
amidships (as with a couturier's shears) on an ornate diagonal, and
companioned by a strong-minded 'symbolic' female staring glumly ahead."
Lederer, Joseph. All Around the Town (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975), pp. 6-7.
Gayle, Margot, and Michele Cohen. The Art
Commission and the Municipal Art Society Guide to Manhattan's Outdoor
Sculpture (New York: Prentice Hall, 1988), p. 7, with a photo
showing the statue and pedestal as they originally appeared.
SIRIS (Smithsonian
Institution, Inventory of American Sculpture)
IAS 76002844.
Morrone, Francis. "Statues
and Civic Memory." City Journal, Summer 1999 (9:3).
Durante, Dianne.
Forgotten Delights: The Producers (2003), pp. 35-42, with
transcriptions and translations of the Italian inscriptions on the
pedestal, plus photos of the whole monument, the bust, and the
allegorical figure.
On the Forgotten Delights site are a
Salute to Verrazzano and a
New Year's greeting that includes a photo of the Verrazzano (proper
right) and the full text of "The Ships That Won't Go Down," one of my
favorite poems.
Forgotten Delights blog entries of
12/26/06 (photo of whole monument, proper left) and
3/1/07 (photo of the allegorical figure).
Text of
New York City Department of Park's historical marker
Grove Art online: article by Valerio Terraroli with substantial
information about Ximenes' training and major works.
American National Biography: Thrower, Norman
J. W. "Verrazzano, Giovanni da."
http://www.anb.org/articles/20/20-01225.html ; American National
Biography Online Feb. 2000.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Great Explorers: The
European Discovery of America (New York, 1986), especially Ch. 5.
Wroth, Lawrence C. The Voyages of Giovanni da
Verrazzano 1524-1528 (Yale University Press,1970): includes a
translation and a transcription of Verrazzano's letter to Francis I, an
extensive bibliography, and maps.
On other early voyages to the future site of New
York City, see Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History
of New York City to 1898 (Oxford University Press, 2000), Ch. 1.
Wikipedia has an
image of an early portrait of Verrazzano and a map of his voyage up
the coast of North America.
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between Brooklyn and
Staten Island, completed in 1964, is inexplicably spelled with only one
"z". The naming of the bridge was quite controversial: Robert Moses
claimed the name was too long and that he had never heard of Verrazzano.
Italian-Americans lobbied New York State and federal legislators to gain
acceptance for the name.
See the Wikipedia article on the Bridge.
The Hudson statue proposed in 1909 was finally
dedicated in the Bronx in 1938. When Robert Moses requested City funds
to illuminate it, Deputy Mayor Curran caustically replied,
I took a good look yesterday at the statue of
Henry Hudson at Spuyten Duyvil ... It is the ugliest statue in New
York, and that is saying a whole lot. The shaft is ugly, the figure
is ugly, the whole thing is ugly. A barber pole would be nicer. Now
just forget your idea of lighting it up at night. If you could dig a
hole at Spuyten Duyvil and let the statue drop into it some night,
and then cover it nicely, that would be the best way to handle it.
(quoted by Jewell in the New York Times, 8/21/1938)
In "Mr. Moses Surveys the City's Statues" (New
York Times 11/14/1943), Moses quoted Curran and added:
The statues you have picked out for disapproval
[Hudson, Pomona, Sherman] seem to me to be among the best in
New York City, but please don't construe this into anything very
complimentary because we have the most God-awful statues in the
world. ... Our memorials may be ugly but it is quite apparent that
there are those who love them and when patriotic feelings get mixed
up with matters of taste, the competition is too much for me.
1. What do you think of allegorical sculptures,
that is, sculptures that show abstract ideas such as Justice, Courage,
Loyalty, Memory? Factors to consider:
- Can such abstractions be shown with enough
clarity that that most viewers will grasp them?
- Is our failure to grasp such abstractions a
sign that they're hopelessly out-dated, or that we are becoming less
familiar with the art and symbolism that are part of Western
civilization?
- Do you think you could be very moved by an
allegorical sculpture as opposed to, for instance a specific person
engaging in a specific action?
- On allegorical sculptures, see Outdoor
Monuments Essay 39, commenting on the significance of
allegorical figures and figures from the distant past.
2. In recent decades the exploration and
settlement of the Americas by Europeans has been vehemently condemned.
Are there any circumstances under which such settlement is justified?
What factors should one consider, for example: who lives there, how
densely populated the area is, what sort of civilization and political
system the inhabitants have, what goals the explorers and settlers seek
or profess to seek?
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