Spartacus

The statue represents the Roman rebel slave Spartacus, whose strive for freedom made him an ispirational figure in the Italian Risorgimento. Indeed, it is the political provocation embedded in the statue, more than its technical realization, that aroused considerable interest in Vela's statue. The marble version produced by Vela in 1850 is placed in the entrance hall of Palazzo Civico, the city's town hall, in Lugano.