The last in class

The life-size bronze represents one of the many moments of study for the making of the funerary monument of Lina Maghenzani, mother of the writer Giovannino Guareschi, buried in Marore, Parma, in 1952. The child has a non-crying expression, but he is discovering a new and difficult reality for him to understand: that of death. Froni liked to be inspired by real models: he chose a child, his neighbor, who had abandoned his studies and who was called Gramigna. He created, modeling it in clay, both the face of the "last of the class" child and one, invented, of a "first of the class". He submitted them both to the judgment of Guareschi, who seemed at first in disagreement with Froni's solution, which suggested the choice of the face of the naughty child. Shortly afterwards, Giovannino said to him, going personally to Froni's house: "you have won and go ahead for Gramigna on my Mother's tomb".