Castiglioni, Giannino

Giannino Castiglioni was born on May 4, 1884 in Milan in the family of Giacomo Castiglioni and his wife Pierre, nee Bergamaski. The father of the future medalist and sculptor was the director of the Johnson Medalier Factory . Castiglioni studied sculpture with Enrico Butti at the in Milan. He made his debut at the International Exhibition in Milan in 1906, presenting to the public several medals and plates, as well as the painting “The Lady in the Yellow” and the sculpture “Plavt”. Won the competition to create a medal of the exhibition. Until 1930, mainly engaged in the manufacture of medals - memorabilia and portrait and sculpture, rarely turning to painting ^{[1] [2]} .

In 1922, he participated in the first National Exhibition of Sacred Art in Milan. In the same year he won an international competition for the creation of sculptures for the legislative palace in Montevideo . Plaster sculptures were sent to Uruguay, where they were reproduced in bronze and marble. The order was fully completed by 1928. In 1926, in Buenos Aires, commissioned by the Italian diaspora in memory of visiting the city as the crown prince of the Italian kingdom, Castiglione sculptured a bronze monument. In 1925–1926, the sculptor created monumental sculptural compositions in memory of the victims of the First World War in Magenta, Lecco and Giff ^{[1] [3] [4]} .

In 1927 he settled in Liern, where he opened a second studio. Until 1932, he created a series of fountains, the most famous of which was the fountain in the garden of the Institute for the Prevention of Tuberculosis among Children in Olgate Olona . In the second half of the 1930s, he completed several orders for the creation of tombs, the most famous of which were the tombs of Bernokki , and Pope Pius IX . The last works of Castiglioni during the Fascist era were monumental sculptural compositions at memorial military cemeteries in Monte Grappa (1935), Timavo (1937), Caporetto and Redipuglia (1938). The monumental figure “Motherland” he created in Monte Grappa did not please King Victor Emmanuel II and was destroyed. In 1937 he received an order for the creation of slabs for the small gates of the cathedral in Milan. The sculptor could only proceed to the fulfillment of the order only in 1943 in his studio in Lierna. All work was completed by December 1950 ^{[1] [3]} .

After World War II, Castiglioni returned to active work. Numerous medals, statues, bas-reliefs, memorial busts, funerary compositions and bas-reliefs for the Monumental Cemetery in Milan belong to this period. In 1953, the sculptor created the Monument to the Italian soldiers who fell in the USSR. They also created monuments to workers who died during the tragedy at the Cancano dam (1955) and to the heroes of the Resistance on (1960) in Milan. Among the works of the last period of the sculptor, the sculpture “The Atonement” (1964) for the Tovaleri Chapel at and the tomb of deserve attention. Castiglioni was married to Livia Bolle, the daughter of a professor of literature, from whom he had three sons - Livio , Pierre Giacomo and Achille , who became well-known designers and architects ^{[2] [5]} . He died in Lierne on August 27, 1971 ^[1] and was buried in the local cemetery ^[6] .