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Hannibal was born in Boccioletto,
Italy in 1875. He immigrated to the United States around 1905, and set
up shop at 509 Leal St., in San Antonio, Texas, with his father John, who
already had an established business producing, primarily, ornamental capitals.
John was the chief plasterer during the construction of the Texas State
Capitol Building, as well as the Georgia State Capitol.
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Later, they moved the shop to 300 Fredericksburg Rd , San Antonio, Texas at the corner of Cornell St. Hannibal's son, Eugene, told me that all the ornamentation for the Majestic Theatre was modeled and cast at this location, then trucked downtown. That building is still standing, and there are some fine examples of his cast stone in place there, as illustrated in the photo below, taken in August, 2000. You can click on the photo for a closer view of this work. Hannibal's work can be seen all over San Antonio, as well as throughout the state of Texas. All of the ornamentation for The Empire Theatre was done by Hannibal in 1913-14. His last major piece of work was a twice life size replica of the Rose Window (at Mission San Jose). It was done for St. Anne's Catholic church in, Beaumont, Texas. There is scan of a copy of this final piece of artwork from the San Antonio Express newspaper, February 26, 1937, before it shipped. Hannibal's son Dale is standing with it. It is huge, and, of course, executed flawlessly. The final work can be viewed by clicking on page 5, farther down on this page.
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