The People's Poet

Piazza Giuseppe Gioachino Belli

Monument to Giuseppe Gioachino Belli by Michele Tripisciano

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In the district of Trastevere, in a piazza which bears his name, stands a monument (1913) to the Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli (1791-1863), the work of the Sicilian sculptor Michele Tripisciano (1860-1913). 

Belli wrote more than 2,000 sonnets about the ordinary people of his native city in romanesco, the dialect of Rome.

The monument, which takes the form of a fountain, was financed by popular subscription and erected to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the poet's death. 

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Monument to Giuseppe Gioachino Belli by Michele Tripisciano