Brief Biography-Antonio Canova was a painter and sculptor born in Possagno in 1757. He is noted primarily for his marble sculptures and became Europe’s most noted neoclassical sculptor. Gavin Hamilton of Scotland and Rome had an early influence on his work. He settled in Rome in 1781, and his first important commission was Theseus and the Minotaur. Canova later did several works for Napoleon and his family, his most famous being Paolina Bonaparte Borghese as Venus. In 1815, at the behest of the Pope, he was instrumental in retrieving works from Paris that Napoleon had looted, and he became Marchese d’Ischia. Other prominent works were the Monument to Pope Clement XIV and the Tomb of Pope Clement XIII in Saint Peter’s Basilica. His remains lie in the Tempio Canoviano church in Possagno, which he designed.