The statue of Castro Alves was cast in the workshop of Angelo Aureli, in São Paulo, arriving in Bahia, in December 1922. It is a work of the Italian sculptor Pasquale de Chirico and represents the poet in the process of declaim, with head uncovered, forehead raised, gaze lost in infinity, student hat in left hand and right arm outstretched.
On the morning of June 20, 1923, the poet's bronze statue was raised to the top of the column that serves as its base. The blocks used for the pedestal and base are made of granite. Once the work was completed, the monument was inaugurated on July 6, 1923. The monument, in its entirety, measures 10.74 meters in height. The pedestal has 6 steps, the first 0.35 meters high and the others 0.25 meters each. The pedestal measures 6.80 meters and the bronze statue of the poet measures 2.34 meters high. On one side of the column, there is a bronze group, measuring 2.16 meters, representing an angel in a flying position, lifting a slave woman by the arm, raising her to height. On the other side of the column, there is an open book with a sword through it, with the following verse in golden letters: Don't blush with the book. At the foot of the statue stands a slave.
The monument is also the poet's tomb, since his remains were transferred there from the cemetery in 1971, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death.
Antônio de Castro Alves (born March 14, 1847, Muritiba, Braz.—died July 6, 1871, Salvador) was a Romantic poet whose sympathy for the Brazilian abolitionist cause won him the name “poet of the slaves.”
While still a student Castro Alves produced a play that brought him to the attention of José de Alencar and Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazilian literary leaders. Having studied for the law, he soon became a dominant figure among the Condoreira (Condor) school of poets, likened, for their dedication to lofty causes and for their preference for elevated style, to the highest flying birds in the Americas. His romantic image was heightened by his sense of being foredoomed by a wound incurred in a hunting accident. He lived and wrote at fever pitch while the wound worsened and eventually led to amputation of his foot. Tuberculosis set in, and he died at 24. Espumas flutuantes (1870; “Floating Foam”) contains some of his finest love lyrics. A cachoeira de Paulo Afonso (1876; “The Paulo Afonso Falls”), a fragment of Os escravos, tells the story of a slave girl who is raped by her master’s son. This and Castro Alves’ other abolitionist poems were collected in a posthumous book, Os escravos (1883; “The Slaves”).
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