He trained locally under his grandfather, a sculptor, but moved to Naples where he frequented the Neapolitan Academy of Fine Arts under Tito Angelini.

The Legionnaire sculpture was interpreted by the critic Salazar as a response to the Hermannsdenkmal, then a recently erected monument in Germany to Arminius, the Germanic general that vanquished the Roman Varro in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

Germanicus was viewed by later historians as Augustus' response to the defeat as well as the loss of the legionary eagles, and called the Avenger of Varro.

One soldier blows a horn, the other raises a flag, and the third inscribes on stone the defeated Germania; about them is the booty of war.

The sculpture, now in a cloister of the Music Conservatory San Pietro a Majella, depicts the composer reclining upon a large, rough rock.