# Ivo Pacini

Ivo Pacini (25 November 1883 – 1959) was an Italian sculptor, active mainly in his native Tuscany.

## Life and career

Ivo Pacini was born in Grosseto in 1883 to a family of artists: his father, Ulisse Pacini, was a musician and director of the municipal band, while his mother was a dramatic actress. His brother Ugo was a prominent figure in the local anarchist movement. Pacini received his artistic training in the workshop of Vincenzo Pasquali, a well-known sculptor in the city, and created his first works between the 1910s and 1920s.
The first documented work is a marble monument in memory of the Catalan anarchist Francisco Ferrer, which was placed in Roccatederighi on 14 September 1914. During this period, Pacini also sculpted plaques, medallions and funerary steles for the cemetery of Misericordia in Grosseto. There is no trace remaining of other documented youth works, such as the busts of Mazzini, Bovio, Carducci, and Socci, as well as the plaque for engineer Tosini of the Croce d'Oro. The sculptor was described in a local chronicle from 1920 as follows: "a humble artist, he lives quietly, does not exhibit his works, does not seek to be talked about, and does not want to be talked about. Some know he is a marble worker because they've seen him square the sill of a window or carve a stone for cemeteries; others think he's a stonecutter because they see him working with a chisel on a block of granite."
In the 1920s, he opened his own workshop on Via Garibaldi, and soon this place became the main meeting point for the emerging artistic scene in Grosseto. In these years, he was the author of numerous monuments to the fallen of World War I throughout the province. Thanks to the frequent visits from intellectuals like Guelfo Civinini and Vincenzo Cardarelli, as well as established painters like Paride Pascucci and Memo Vagaggini, Ivo Pacini's workshop became a center of cultural debate. Sculptors and painters such as Tolomeo Faccendi and Carlo Gentili developed their skills at Pacini's, and it was also regularly frequented by artists from other cities, such as Renzo Capezzuoli from Siena and Pietro Pagliani from Modena. Thus, the Grosseto artistic movement was born, and the first Maremma Union Art Exhibition was inaugurated on 24 May 1933. Painter Carlo Gentili recalled that "Ivo Pacini's workshop was the nest for all of us; painters, sculptors, writers [...], musicians, and politicians, from socialists and communists to Freemasons, anarchists, and republicans, met there."
Among his last works was a bust of Giuseppe Mazzini placed in 1950 on the Molino a Vento Bastion of the walls of Grosseto and a design for a monument to Andrea da Grosseto that was never realized. Pacini died in 1959.

## Works (selection)

* Monument to Francisco Ferrer, Roccatederighi (1914)
* World War I Memorial, Campagnatico (1922)
* World War I Memorial, Orbetello (1922)
* World War I Memorial, Gavorrano (1923)
* World War I Memorial, Montorgiali (1923)
* World War I Memorial, Roselle (1925)
* World War I Memorial, Istia d'Ombrone (1931)
* Pietà in the Ulmi Chapel, cemetery of Misericordia, Grosseto (1933)
* Ecce Homo in the Del Fa Chapel, cemetery of Misericordia, Grosseto (1939)
* Monument to Giuseppe Mazzini, Molino a Vento Bastion, Grosseto (1950)