Adamo Tadolini was Antonio Canova’s most trusted studio assistant, establishing an international reputation for himself as one of the last great Italian Neoclassical sculptors. Born in Bologna, he trained at the city’s Accademia di Belle Arte, where he received a rigorous education in the classical principles of sculpture. In 1814, he moved to Rome, winning the prize Canova had instituted for talented young sculptors. Impressed by Tadolini’s pure classicism, the master took him on as an assistant. Tadolini became so expert a marble carver that the versions he produced of his master’s models were (and still are) often thought to be originals by Canova himself; including, for example, the Cupid Reviving Psyche in the Villa Carlotta, Lake Como. As a sign of their closeness, Canova helped Tadolini to set up his own workshop in the Via dei Greci, which exists to this day.
This beautiful Neoclassical relief representing the Martyrdom of San Pancrazio (St Pancras) was made by Tadolini in 1854 whilst he was visiting Calvi, Umbria, as the Saint was the town's protector. The relief shows the Saint resisting the orders of the Emperor Diocletian to perform a sacrifice to the Roman Gods. At the very moment the Emperor orders the executioner to raise his sabre, an angel descends from Heaven with the crowning wreath of martyrdom.