CIMV 5.

0 | Antonio Canova 1

Antonio Canova | Texto Completo

Long ago in Italy, there lived a child named Antonio Canova. His father had
died, so Antonio lived with his grandfather, a poor stonecutter. Antonio was
too small to work, but he loved to go with his grandfather to the stone-yard.
While the old man cut the large, unwieldy blocks of stone, the boy played
among the chips, sculpting little figures from soft clay or smaller rocks.
Antonio’s skill surprised his grandfather. "The boy will be a sculptor some
day," he said.

Every night when they got home, Antonio's grandmother would say, "What
have you been doing today, my little sculptor?" She would take him upon her
lap and tell him stories that filled his mind with pictures of beautiful things.
The next day, he would try to make some of those pictures in stone or clay. A
rich man named The Count also lived in the same town. Sometimes The
Count threw grand dinners for his wealthy friends from other towns.
Antonio's grandfather would go to The Count's house to help with the
kitchen work. He was a fine cook as he was a stonecutter.

One day, Antonio went with his grandfather to The Count's estate. The boy
could not cook or wait on the grand table, but he could help clean up. As
workers set the grand table, there was a crash in the dining room. A man, pale
and afraid, came quickly into the kitchen holding stone fragments. "What
should I do?" he cried. "I broke the centerpiece statue. The grand table will
look bare without it, and The Count will be angry." The staff trembled. Was
the dinner going to be a failure? Everything depended on having the grand
table perfectly set.

All of the staff asked, "What should we do?" Little Antonio approached the
terrified man who broke the centerpiece. "If you had another statue, could
you set the grand table perfectly?" "Certainly," said the man,"if it were the
right length and height." "Perhaps I can make something that will work," said
Antonio. The man laughed. "Impossible! Who are you, talking about making
statues on an hour's notice?" "I am Antonio Canova." "Let the boy try and see
what he can do," said the grandfather. The staff agreed. And so, since nothing
else could be done, the man allowed Antonio to try.

In the kitchen, a 200-pound piece of butter sat waiting to be appropriately

prepared. It had just arrived, fresh from the milk farm on the mountain. With
a kitchen knife in his hand, Antonio shaped this butter. He quickly created
the shape of a proud lion, and all at the staff came closer to see it. "How
MzcxMDU3OTYzNTE=
© 2019 | Curso de Inglês Mairo Vergara
 CIMV 5.0 | Antonio Canova 2

beautiful!" they cried. "It’s much better than the broken statue." When it was
finished, the man carried the statue to its place. "The grand table will be more
beautiful than I ever hoped to make it!"

When The Count and his friends came to dinner, the first thing they saw was
the yellow lion on the grand table. "What a beautiful work of art!" they cried.
"Nobody but a great artist could ever create such a figure! Who made it?"
"Truly, my friends," The Count said, "this is as much of a surprise to me as to
you." The Count then called his head staff member and asked where he had
found this wonderful statue. "It was made only an hour ago by a little boy in
the kitchen," said the man.

This information made The Count's friends wonder more, so The Count
called the boy into the room. "My boy," he said, "you have done a piece of
work of which the greatest artists would be proud. What is your name, and
who is your teacher?" "My name is Antonio Canova, and I have had no
teacher but my grandfather, the stonecutter." All the guests came to stand
around Antonio. There were famous artists among them, and they knew that
the boy was a prodigy. When they sat down at the grand table, nothing
pleased them more than talking to Antonio, and the dinner became a party in
his honor. The very next day, The Count sent for Antonio to live with him. The
best artists in the land taught him to sculpt, and he learned how to carve in
marble. In a few years, Antonio Canova became known as one of the greatest
sculptors in the world.

MzcxMDU3OTYzNTE=
© 2019 | Curso de Inglês Mairo Vergara