He himself, did not much care about all the noise around his persona. He was a loner, he had no family and his whole energy was devoted to work and social activity. He financially supported his students, fought for protection of Italian works of art, trying to prevent their export abroad; he invested in archeological sites, transferring them over to Italian museums.

He was born in the Republic of Venice in a family of stonemasons. His initial works were created in the style of Baroque or Rococo but after coming to Rome in 1780, where he attempted to become familiar with the secrets of Greek sculpture (known from Roman copies), his art acquired the features of a static, classical style with tendencies of idealism and grandeur, however, distant from pathos and monumentality of the previous epoch. Canova’s sculptures were moving and fascinating due to their silent melancholy, timeless beauty and an excellence of execution. In Rome his talents were quickly noticed, entrusting him with work on two important papal sarcophaguses – of Clement XIII and Clement XIV. He also worked for Napoleon Bonaparte and his family, of which the greatest artistic example is the portrait of the French emperor’s sister – Pauline Borghese, a work of unprecedented character (Pauline Borghese as the Venus Victrix).  His most interesting but probably not his best works which were commissioned by Pope Pius VII, in order to decorate the rectangular courtyard of the Belvedere are the statues of two antique boxers. In them, the artist distanced himself from, the often-admired in his works, classical peace and harmony in exchange for a demonstration of power, and they will be the ones constituting the link connecting antique Roman art with the one which will arise in the XX century under the auspices of another admirer of antique art – Benito Mussolini. Searching for traces of Canova in Rome, it is impossible not to mention his house, where he along with numerous assistants and apprentices, worked and received guests.  It is located at via Canova (previously via di San Giacomo), a small street off via del Corso, opposite a former hospital (Ospedale di San Giacomo). Casa del Canova (Canova’s House) is hard to miss, since its façade is decorated by fragments of antique bas-reliefs and decorative elements, in the past found at via Appia Antica, where the artist personally supervised archeological works. The façade   is also decorated by the bust of the sculptor, recalling his stay in the city on the Tiber. He bought the house in 1803, four years after settling in Rome. Within its confines he created his most famous works – apart from the aforementioned statue of Pauline Borghese, such famous sculptures as, The Three Graces or Psyche and Cupid, which can today be found outside of Italy.

Another place in Rome connected with the sculptor, which is far more interesting for visitors is a café and restaurant known by the name Atelier Museum of Canova and Tadolini, located at via del Babuino 150a, of which the entrance is “guarded” by one of the strangest sculptures – “the flayed” Babuino. The workshop found at this address was in 1818, given by Canova to his apprentice Adamo Tadolini and it is from the surnames of both the sculptors – the master and the apprentice – that the café took its name. Was this really a second workshop of Canova, or did he only broker its purchase, that we do not know for sure. After the death of Adamo it became the property of the Tadolini family, which in the coming decades produced many skilled sculptors. It remained in the family until 1967. And it is the artifacts of each individual member of the Tadolini family, as well as pictures, tools and documents, and casts left over after Canova (including the famous Dancer and the plaster cast of the tomb monument of Pope Clement XIV) decorate the building. However, this strange museum is today most of all a place, where  at a table standing among loosely placed casts we can drink coffee and prosecco, or even eat lunch or supper.

The greatest works of Antonio Canova in Rome:

Church of Santi Apostoli

• Tomb monument of Clement XIV (1787) – the artist worked on it for two years, wanting to pattern it after the tomb monument of Urban VIII completed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It was considered one of the greatest works of funerary art of the modern era, ensuring the sculptor’s renown both in Rome and in Europe.
• Tomb plaque of Giovanni Volpato (1807), copper engraver and the artist’s friend, completed on his own accord in the church vestibule

Church of San Marco

• Tomb pedestal of Leonardo Pesaro (1796)

Basilica of San Pietro in Vaticano

• Tomb monument of Clement XIII (1792); a kneeling pope accompanied by: a personification of Religion with a cross, a winged genius of Death and two lions – one vigilant, the other sleeping
• Tomb monument of the Stuart family (1829) – Jacob Stuart and his two sons (from a marriage with Maria Clementina Sobieska): Charles Edward and Henry Benedict. This is one of the works characteristic to mature output of the artist. In it Canova moved away from great narration – instead reaching for the motif of a pyramid, placing a pair of grieving geniuses of Death at the entrance.

Church of Sant’Antonio dei Portoghesi

• Tomb monument of Duke Alessandro de Souza Holstein (1806)

Musei Vaticani – Museo Pio-Clementino (Vatican Museums)

• Perseus with the head of Medusa (1801)
• Statues of boxers – Creugas and Damoxenos (1806)

Galleria Borghese

• Pauline Borghese as the Venus Victrix (1808)

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna

• Group Hercules and Lichas (1815)

In Vatican, Canova assumed the function of inspector-general of antiquities and fine art and it was he who went to Paris after the fall of Napoleon to recover the works of art taken by the emperor and return them to Rome, in which to a large extent he succeeded.

The artist was a favorite of consecutive popes, but his works and friendship were sought by rulers of then Europe – the Austrian emperor, the king of England, or the French Emperor Napoleon. His art was praised and admired, while he himself was considered an oracle on the topic of taste and beauty.  In Rome he was known as the Minister of Beauty, but as it turned out such a title would not last forever. He was thrown off the pedestal in the XX century seeing in his pose sculptures, sweetness and sentimentalism, not noticing anything original about them. The same Italian art historian, Roberto Longhi, who “discovered” Caravaggio in the middle of the XX century, mercilessly whipped the works of Canova stripping them of all value. Currently perception of his works has changed, although he himself is still waiting for his grand comeback in Rome.