(Viterbo, 1893 – Rome, 1951), a painter and sculptor, inherited a natural inclination for art from his father Enrico, himself an artist and painter, a representative of the enlightened middle class of Viterbo, where he founded the School of Arts and Crafts. This inclination was soon combined with a profound interest in antiquity and the Renaissance, also influenced by the teachings of Ettore Ferrari, his teacher at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, who was noted for his re-examination of Donatello, Baroque sculpture, particularly Bernini, and classical statuary. He had few but profound ties: with his wife, Serafina Pisciarelli, and the model for all his female nudes, and with the sculptor and close friend, Attilio Selva.
The Silvio Canevari Papers, donated to the Foundation in 1994, consist of the epistolary and iconographic documentation relating to the Monument to the Fallen of Pistoia, an imposing sculpture created by the artist in 1925 in Piazza Mazzini. Correspondence, entirely photocopied, collects some council resolutions on the assignment of the task and the location of the monument, together with various communications relating to the start of the works and the choice of materials. Photo Library collects 21 photographs of the sculpture, mostly details, while the study by C. Frulli, Silvio Canevari's monument to the Fallen of Pistoia (in «Artista. Critica dell'arte in Toscana 1992», Casa Editrice Le Lettere, 1992), reconstructs the historical-artistic history of the work.
