Description:
Interesting and antique half bust representing Marquis Basilio Puoti, made of kaolin in the mid-19th century. The base measures 16x13 cm, the maximum width is 24 cm, the height is 54 cm. An important figure, literary critic, and lexicographer, he was born in Naples (1782/1847) and graduated in law in 1809. The first of seven children, he was the general inspector of public education in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and refused any position in order to teach at the school he himself founded in Naples in 1825. His students included illustrious men such as the writer and patriot Luigi Settembrini, and the literary critic and several-time minister of public education, Francesco De Sanctis. The Puoti family belonged to the so-called "nobility of the robe," so Marquis Basilio was destined for a legal career until, around the age of 25, due to a serious illness that put his life in danger, he was granted permission by his father to abandon his law studies and dedicate himself exclusively to literary studies. The bust is in a good state of preservation: the sculptor is presumably Basilio's brother, Marquis Colonel Vincenzo Puoti, a well-known sculptor of the time.
