Giuseppe Moretti’s great bronze sculpture of the horses and Youth, the centerpiece of the Battle of Nashville Monument, have suffered long years of neglect--and positive abuse.
If a new grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is successful, that great wrong will be righted.
The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society has requested funds to hire Shelley Reisman Paine Conservators to recreate the original sheen and luster that Moretti gave to this huge casting.
The proposal to NEA was prepared by James Summerville, a member of the Society and a long-term community volunteer for the restoration and preservation of the Battle of Nashville Monument.
Moretti designed these bronzes and oversaw their fabrication from cannon used in the Great War (World War I, 1914-18). He set them as the central figures in the Battle of Nashville Monument, commissioned by women civic leaders, and erected on Franklin Road in 1927.
The bronzes were badly damaged by a tornado in 1974. The Tennessee Historical Commission, owner of the sculpture, hired E. Karkodulias, Cincinnati, Ohio, to restore the work. This firm repaired the physical damage but treated the surface with inappropriate methods, leaving it rough in texture, dull, and black .The result was not undone with mere pressure washing, which the sculpture received in May 1999 at the hands of another State contractor.
“The Monument was declared officially restored that spring,” said Jim Summerville. “But the job isn’t finished--and it won’t be until Signor Moretti’s stunning Youth and yoked horses glow in the sunlight.” If funded, the project will take place in the spring of 2005.
The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society and Civil War Roundtable is dedicated to the preservation of historic Civil War sites in Davidson County, Tennessee relating to the fight of December 15-16, 1864. The group has been instrumental in helping preserve Fort Negley, Shy's Hill, Confederate Redoubt No. 1, and the Battle of Nashville Monument, among other local civic and historical treasures.