Italian sculptor and draughtsman, born in Catania, Sicily. At the age of thirteen entered the workshop of a funerary stone mason and studied briefly at the Palermo Academy (1934). In 1939 produced his first major sculpture, L ’Omino, shown at the Rome Quadriennale. Settled in 1943 in Rome and had his first one-man exhibition in 1946, at the Galleria Il Cortile. 1948-52 Professor of sculpture at the Liceo Artistico, Rome, 1952-55 at the Carrara Academy, 1955-67 at the Naples Academy and from 1966 at the Academy in Rome. 1954 First one-person exhibition in the US, Rhode Island School of Design. 1963 Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon. 1971: Museum of Fine Art, Kobe, Japan. Won the competition for the design of the monument to Pinocchio in Collodi 1953 and the City of Venice sculpture prize at the 1956 Venice Biennale. His monumental works also include three bronze doors for Orvieto Cathedral (1959-64) and a monument to Pope John XXIII for St Peter's in the Vatican (1965-66).