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<p>CIMV 5.0 | Antonio Canova</p><p>© 2019 | Curso de Inglês Mairo Vergara</p><p>1</p><p>Antonio Canova | Texto Completo</p><p>Long ago in Italy, there lived a child named Antonio Canova. His father had</p><p>died, so Antonio lived with his grandfather, a poor stonecutter. Antonio was</p><p>too small to work, but he loved to go with his grandfather to the stone-yard.</p><p>While the old man cut the large, unwieldy blocks of stone, the boy played</p><p>among the chips, sculpting little figures from soft clay or smaller rocks.</p><p>Antonio’s skill surprised his grandfather. "The boy will be a sculptor some</p><p>day," he said.</p><p>Every night when they got home, Antonio's grandmother would say, "What</p><p>have you been doing today, my little sculptor?" She would take him upon her</p><p>lap and tell him stories that filled his mind with pictures of beautiful things.</p><p>The next day, he would try to make some of those pictures in stone or clay. A</p><p>rich man named The Count also lived in the same town. Sometimes The</p><p>Count threw grand dinners for his wealthy friends from other towns.</p><p>Antonio's grandfather would go to The Count's house to help with the</p><p>kitchen work. He was a fine cook as he was a stonecutter.</p><p>One day, Antonio went with his grandfather to The Count's estate. The boy</p><p>could not cook or wait on the grand table, but he could help clean up. As</p><p>workers set the grand table, there was a crash in the dining room. A man, pale</p><p>and afraid, came quickly into the kitchen holding stone fragments. "What</p><p>should I do?" he cried. "I broke the centerpiece statue. The grand table will</p><p>look bare without it, and The Count will be angry." The staff trembled. Was</p><p>the dinner going to be a failure? Everything depended on having the grand</p><p>table perfectly set.</p><p>All of the staff asked, "What should we do?" Little Antonio approached the</p><p>terrified man who broke the centerpiece. "If you had another statue, could</p><p>you set the grand table perfectly?" "Certainly," said the man,"if it were the</p><p>right length and height." "Perhaps I can make something that will work," said</p><p>Antonio. The man laughed. "Impossible! Who are you, talking about making</p><p>statues on an hour's notice?" "I am Antonio Canova." "Let the boy try and see</p><p>what he can do," said the grandfather. The staff agreed. And so, since nothing</p><p>else could be done, the man allowed Antonio to try.</p><p>In the kitchen, a 200-pound piece of butter sat waiting to be appropriately</p><p>prepared. It had just arrived, fresh from the milk farm on the mountain. With</p><p>a kitchen knife in his hand, Antonio shaped this butter. He quickly created</p><p>the shape of a proud lion, and all at the staff came closer to see it. "How</p><p>MjI5ODYyNzc2Mg==</p><p>CIMV 5.0 | Antonio Canova</p><p>© 2019 | Curso de Inglês Mairo Vergara</p><p>2</p><p>beautiful!" they cried. "It’s much better than the broken statue." When it was</p><p>finished, the man carried the statue to its place. "The grand table will be more</p><p>beautiful than I ever hoped to make it!"</p><p>When The Count and his friends came to dinner, the first thing they saw was</p><p>the yellow lion on the grand table. "What a beautiful work of art!" they cried.</p><p>"Nobody but a great artist could ever create such a figure! Who made it?"</p><p>"Truly, my friends," The Count said, "this is as much of a surprise to me as to</p><p>you." The Count then called his head staff member and asked where he had</p><p>found this wonderful statue. "It was made only an hour ago by a little boy in</p><p>the kitchen," said the man.</p><p>This information made The Count's friends wonder more, so The Count</p><p>called the boy into the room. "My boy," he said, "you have done a piece of</p><p>work of which the greatest artists would be proud. What is your name, and</p><p>who is your teacher?" "My name is Antonio Canova, and I have had no</p><p>teacher but my grandfather, the stonecutter." All the guests came to stand</p><p>around Antonio. There were famous artists among them, and they knew that</p><p>the boy was a prodigy. When they sat down at the grand table, nothing</p><p>pleased them more than talking to Antonio, and the dinner became a party in</p><p>his honor. The very next day, The Count sent for Antonio to live with him. The</p><p>best artists in the land taught him to sculpt, and he learned how to carve in</p><p>marble. In a few years, Antonio Canova became known as one of the greatest</p><p>sculptors in the world.</p><p>MjI5ODYyNzc2Mg==</p>