3-003-706 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Inauguration of Cavour's Monument in the Campo Santo at Pisa, 1861. 'Pisa possesses in her celebrated Campo Santo the most storied, the most remarkable, and the most beautiful burying-place in Europe...The task of pronouncing an appropriate oration was intrusted to Signor Villari, the Professor of the Philosophy of History in the University, and well known to the literary world of Europe...His oration was much applauded, but the passage which drew forth the most enthusiastic plaudits from an audience composed mainly, it is to be observed, of university professors and city magistrates, was that in which he spoke of the great statesman's, efforts in favour of liberty of conscience...our artist...has chosen the moment when the long procession of academical and civic dignitaries, passing up the centre of that matchless cloister, defiled, bn turning into the western corridor, into the places prepared for them in front of the speaker's rostrum. On his left hand, as he stood facing eastward, is the newly-placed bust, with its inscription beneath it. Around, on the walls, or isolated on pavement, are the thickly-placed memorials, mortuary or other, of the every epoch of Italy's past life and past greatness in every department'. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.