Modesto Parlatore

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Modesto Parlatore (5 March 1849 – 6 March 1912) was an Italian sculptor and architect from Orsogna in the province of Chieti. In 1870 he won a stipend to study in Rome, where he studied sculpture and architecture at the Institute of Fine Arts under Tito Angelini and was encouraged by the painter Annibale Angelini. He began by making busts, including a widow, an old man, King Umberto, and Garibaldi, and won first prize at the 1877 Geneva Exposition. He designed monuments to Garibaldi (the Hero of Caprera) to be built in Chieti and to Quintino Sella, but these projects were never built. His work Ad comilia depicted a young, strong Roman citizen.

As an architect, Parlatore did restorations and served on commissions to judge monument designs, including a Vittorio Emanuele II monument in Spoleto. After he complained about possible corruption in the selection process, he was excluded from official commissions in Rome.

In the 21st century, a collection of his works was donated to his home province and placed in an annex of the Museo Orsognese Arte Musica in Torre Di Bene, Orsogna. The pieces include four life-size stucco statues (La Sorpresa, Il Ravvedimento, Il Fromboliere, Vir Plebeus Ad Forum), a stucco relief of San Rocco among the plague victims, a heraldic shield of Guardiagrele, and ten half-busts in bronze, stucco, and terracotta. He also sculpted a plaque honoring Italian soldiers who fell in the 19th-century Ethiopian campaign (Monument to Caduti di Saati e Dogali, 1887) near the Church of Santa Chiara in Lanciano, at the site of former barracks.