The Baseggio Family included wood sculptors, painter, and an architect active mainly near
Rovigo.
Giuseppe Baseggio (c. 1727 in
Rovigo – August 2, 1775 in
Senigallia) was an Italian wood sculptor, active in Northern Italy, mainly in
Ferrara
Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
and
Rovigo. He was part of a large family of artists, who included his father a wood sculptor, Sante Baseggio the Elder (died 1766), his brother the painter
Massimino (1737-1813), and his son, the sculptor Sante Baseggio il Giovane. The elder Sante was born in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
and moved to Rovigo, where he completed the statues of San Bartolomeo and San Benedetto in the church of the Madonna dei Sabbioni, as well as the wooden decoration of the main entrance of the church of the Madonna del Soccorso. From Rovigo he moved to
Ferrara
Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
.
As a young man, Giuseppe after a few years in Ferrara moved back to his native Rovigo. There he completed the pulpit of the church of San Francesco and the statue of the Immaculate Conception for the church of the Concezione. Along with his brother, a painter of
quadratura, he completed a number of processional statues and floats for local confraternities.
Of Giuseppe's three children: Antonio was an engineer, his daughter Anna was a Franciscan nun, but his youngest, Sante the younger (Ferrara, November 1, 1749-?) entered the main family trade of wood working. He had some training in Rome. He labored mainly in Rovigo from 1758 til after 1793. In this town, he helped fashion wooden decorations for the Convent of San Bartolomeo, furniture for the House of Milanovich, and in 1788, helped restore the façade of Teatro Roncale, now Manfredini. He also worked on the interior seating and stage. He created a ''baldacchino'' over the main altar of the parish church of
Fratta. In 1792, he submitted a wooden model design for the construction of the future
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice (, "The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre" and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice beca ...
theater in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
; however, ultimately
Giovanni Antonio Selva’s design was chosen.
Finally, one of Antonio Baseggio's children, also named Sante (1794-1861), was an engineer and architect in Rovigo. He appears to have worked (and is sometimes confused ) with his uncle, in the design and construction of the palazzo dell'Accademia dei Concordi (1814) and the neoclassical Teatro sociale (1818-1819, reconstructed after a fire in 1904).
Entry by Elena Bassi on the Baseggio family in the encyclopedia Treccani.
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baseggio Family
18th-century Italian architects
18th-century Italian painters
19th-century Italian painters
19th-century Italian sculptors