At the centre of the lunette set over the tomb-frame, which was built in 1873 in Neo-Renaissance style, the sculptor Benetti has placed Giovanni Battista Piaggio’s bust: his professional symbols (an anchor, ropes, a sandclock, a globe and a nautical map), placed on both sides of his portrait, are aimed at recalling his professional fortunes: in fact the epitaph says: “in his double work as a captain and a merchant he has promoted trade and navigation in his homeland and in both Americas”. According to the Bourgeoisie, both work and family, the latter being intended as the basic unit of social structure, are two fundamental and essential values; that’s why the sculptor Benetti has placed at the threshold of the tomb a sculpture which represents the widow as she is going out of the sepulchral bronze door with a book of prayer in her hands: therefore, in full accordance to the rules of the bourgeois Realism, even the mourning for the loved dead takes on an everyday connotation. Please notice the detailed description of every aspect of his clothes and traits, as well as the attention paid by the sculptor in outlining the character’s state of mind.
