Description
The Malavoglia Fountain is the large group of sculptures on the south side of Piazza Giovanni Verga, in Catania, opposite the Grand Hotel Excelsior: fishermen struggling against the sea, acting out a page of Giovanni Verga's novel I Malavoglia.
The sculptor Carmelo Mendola set chapter X of the novel in stone: the Provvidenza, the family's boat, overwhelmed by a wave, the mast snapping, Padron 'Ntoni no longer answering. Tense, anguished bodies, among jets of water spouting from the base that make the scene even more theatrical.
Mendola was a self-taught artist from Catania, and at the 1956 competition many looked at him with skepticism; he won. The work took nineteen years: the fountain was unveiled on October 25, 1975, and the sculptor died a few months later, in February 1976.
The sculptor Carmelo Mendola set chapter X of the novel in stone: the Provvidenza, the family's boat, overwhelmed by a wave, the mast snapping, Padron 'Ntoni no longer answering. Tense, anguished bodies, among jets of water spouting from the base that make the scene even more theatrical.
Mendola was a self-taught artist from Catania, and at the 1956 competition many looked at him with skepticism; he won. The work took nineteen years: the fountain was unveiled on October 25, 1975, and the sculptor died a few months later, in February 1976.