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entry Oct 2008
The Russian Horses
I have read that they are not even
bronze, but rather “fused iron.”
Since the only metallurgist I know is too busy smelting at the moment
to explain the difference to me, I shall continue to call them “bronze”
just the way Neapolitans do—quite simply, they are the cavalli di bronzo, the “bronze
horses.” The term refers to the two statues mounted on the pillars of
the east entrance to the gardens of the Royal
Palace in Naples. That is not exactly an out of the way spot, but
the average tourist gaze is likely to sweep past it and focus on the
huge Maschio Angioino castle right
across the way; thus, people tend not to pay too much attention to
these statues—to my knowledge, the only obvious chunks of Imperial
Russia on display in Naples.
Rightly, the statues are called “i
domatori di cavalli”—the horse tamers. They are the work of Russian
sculptor Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg
(1805-67) and are similar to two of the sculptor’s four statues on the
Anichkov bridge over the Fontanka river in St. Petersburg. Strictly
speaking, the Neapolitan horses are not copies, not replicas of the
statues in Russia, but similar to them and, in
fact, predate the ones on the Russian bridge. In the early 1840s, Clodt
von Jürgensburg did the original four for the bridge, at which
point
Czar Nicolas I told the sculptor that he “made finer horses than any
prize stallion does.” The Czar liked the statues so much that he gave
them away as gifts: two went to Prussian King Frederick William IV and
are still in the Heinrich von Kleist park in Berlin. The other two came
to Naples as a gift to Ferdinand II in
1846 on the occasion of a state visit by the czar to the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies. The sculptor then cast four definitive versions of
his
Horse Tamers for the bridge in St. Petersburg; they were installed in
1851 and are still there, having survived even the ravages of World War
II.
The horses in Naples are reared
up;
they look wild and as yet untamed, while the horse-tamers, themselves,
are as naked as the horses. It all looks savage and somewhat
“un-Italian,” —let’s say Russian and steppe-like —at least compared to
other stately and totally tamed equestrian statues in the city (the two mounted versions of Charles III and his son, Ferdinand I
in the square on the west side of the same royal palace, for example.)
But the inspiration is very classical; the statues are variations of
the colossal Roman marbles of Castor and Pollux, the Heavenly Twins,
posed with their steeds at the fountain on the Quirinal Hill in Rome.
The Horse Tamers in Naples were cleaned and restored in 2002 (which,
incidentally, is the last
time I have seen that particular entrance to the gardens open).
There was a reason for the good
relations between Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Naples in the
1840s that impelled the czar to give away
two of his prize monuments. Czar Nicolas’ grandfather, Czar Paul I, had
signed Russia up
in the so-called “Second Coalition (formed in 1798) against the forces
of Republican
France. The other members of the Coalition were Great Britain, Austria,
Portugal, Naples
and, surprisingly, Turkey (the Ottoman Empire). For a while, then, the
Russian and Turks
put aside their centuries of dispute to make common cause against the
French. A joint
Russo-Turkish fleet joined the forces of Admiral Nelson in the southern
Mediterranean. The immediate goal was to dislodge the French-supported Neapolitan
Republic (proclaimed in January, 1799) and reinstall the Bourbon
monarchy to the throne of Naples. A
body of five- or six-hundred Russians and Turks landed on the Adriatic
coast, having crossed
from Corfu, to assist the Royalist forces under Ruffo in retaking the
kingdom. They
were successful, and the Russian and Turkish commanders both signed the
armistice agreement
by which the Bourbons (in this case, King Ferdinand I) were restored in
Naples. One
grandfather had helped another, and both grandsons were now still
absolute
monarchs, still resisting the gathering forces of reform at
mid-century. That’s worth a couple of statues.
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