James Salvatore John Novelli (October 18, 1885 - May 31, 1940) was an Italian American sculptor known for his funeral and war memorials.

His family settled in lower Manhattan in New York, and he was raised in a tenement house on Mulberry Street in the Five Points, which became the heart of Little Italy.

[2] In 1903, Novelli returned to Italy to study and graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1908.

[2] As a student, he earned an honorable mention for his work submitted to the 1906 International Exposition in Paris.

[2] His career foundering during the Depression, he worked with the city's monument crew.