For this monument, which has been raised in memory of the surgeon Luigi Pastorini, the sculptor Navone has conceived a complex allegory, in which a feminine winged figure, representing the Medicine, distributes some wealth to a Sister of Charity who holds an ill baby. She is helped by another winged figure, the Munificence, whose regard is turned towards the deceased. The “Cappellone” Sisters – they are so named because of their large head covering – were so committed to provide aid to the poor that they have become the symbol of the assistance to the needy. Navone has succeeded in harmonizing the Medicine allegory and its delicacy with the raw representation of the poor people: in fact, as from the middle years of the bourgeois realism, the poor were portrayed in a very realistic way, without any idealization.
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