Colossus of San Carlo Borromeo (known also as the Sancarlone), at Arona. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584,
a leading figure of the Counter-Reformation movement against Protestant Reformation , and responsible for significant reforms in
the Catholic Church, including the foundation of seminaries for the education of priests. He was born in the castle of Arona on
Lake Maggiore, in 1538. He died in 1584 and was canonized in 1610. This statue was built between 1614 and 1695. At 35m high,
it was the largest bronze standing statue in the world, and is still second only to the Statue of Liberty.
Bartholdi, the French artist who designed the Statue of Liberty, visited Arona in 1869, to study the statue’s structure.