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The Monument to the Count of Porto Alegre is a public monument in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. It is located in Praça Conde de Porto Alegre and is dedicated to Manuel Marques de Sousa, Count of Porto Alegre, a combatant in the Cisplatine War, the Ragamuffin War, and the Platine War, and a hero of the Battle of Tuiuti during the Paraguayan War.
It was one of the first monuments installed in Porto Alegre, originally erected in 1885 in Praça da Matriz, in front of the government palace. It was moved to its current location in 1912 when Mayor José Montaury renamed the area from Praça General Marques to Praça Conde de Porto Alegre.[1][2]
The work was initially commissioned to Gustavo Saenger, a sculptor and marble worker based in Cacimbinhas, following a public competition. Saenger's design, presented on December 10, 1878, envisioned a grand monument including a 2.2-meter statue of the honored figure, a 6-meter pedestal in the form of a Corinthian column adorned with a laurel wreath, the Count's coat of arms, a national emblem, a plaque with inscriptions, and two allegorical figures at the base representing Peace and War. On January 17 of the following year, the press reported the selection of his design, and soon after, the preparatory drawings were displayed in a decorated shop window on Rua da Praia.[1]
The monument was to be completed in two years at the cost of ten contos de réis, but for unknown reasons, Saenger's project was abandoned, and the work was transferred to the workshop of Adriano Pittanti. Pittanti's version was simpler, consisting of a life-sized statue of the Count dressed in military regalia, holding his hat in his right hand and gloves in his left, perhaps alluding to his nickname, "Centauro de Luvas" (Centaur with Gloves). The statue leans against a small plinth behind its left leg and is mounted on a tall granite pedestal with a marble plaque featuring the Count's coat of arms and title. The pedestal was crafted in Rio de Janeiro. The statue was praised for its accurate likeness of the subject and the high quality of the marble work.[1] The festive unveiling ceremony on February 1, 1885, was attended by a large audience, including Princess Isabel, the provincial president, city council members, consular officials, and other high-ranking authorities.[3]
Adriano Pittanti received all the credit for the work, but according to testimony by Paschoal Fossati, son of Carlo Fossati, given in 1956 to Athos Damasceno Ferreira, the statue was created by his father:
- "The informant states that, at the time, Carlo Fossati was a partner of Pittanti and was entrusted with the difficult task for which he made the model—now preserved by the Câmara family—the clay model, and, for the most part, the transfer to marble. Paschoal admits that, in the final phase of the work, his father received assistance from Domenico Pittanti, Adriano's brother. However, he insists that the authorship of the work belongs to Carlo Fossati, attributing the silence surrounding the matter to his father's extreme modesty.
- "The source of the above information is credible. However, lacking other elements of historical proof, the author of this chronicle does not intend to support the testimony, although he leans towards accepting the version, considering Fossati's qualifications and recognized skills as a sculptor—qualifications that, at the time, other professionals in the field did not possess and skills that these same professionals never surpassed." [1]