Living in Rome at the time of his first marriage at age 44. He was there because he had, through a competition sponsored by Pope Gregorio XIII213, earned the right (with Antonio della Bitta) to sculpt the Neptune fountain in the Piazza Navona in 1873. He created the sirens, seahorses, and dolphins surrounding Neptune.213 The fountain was finished in 1878.

A famous sculptor, Gregorio also crafted the replica of Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli’s statue of Neptune in the harbor of Messina. (The original is in the Museo Regionale.) He is also responsible for the statues of Saints Peter and Paul flanking the main door at the Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura (Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls) in Rome, and busts of Garibaldi, Vittorio Emanuele II, politician Giuseppe La Farina, poet Felice Bisazza, and Giuseppe Verdi in the Cimitero Monumentale di Messina (Gran Camposanto, Galleria Monumentale)214. He made busts of Thomas Aloysio Juvara and Aliprandi for the civic museum.211 In 1861, he was commissioned by the city to do a bust of General Cialdini.211 He created the Cuore de Gesu for the Chiesa del Sacro Cuoro di Gesu. He carved a wooden statue of the Madonna in 1902215 for the Chiesa S. Maria delle Grazie in Giampilieri Superiore (Messina)216. Also in the early 1900s, he created a monument for Florio Lombardo Milazzo.211 He sculpted the family crest in limestone on the Grill family tomb in the British cemetery in Messina.217 St. Anthony’s in Padua and the Sacra Famiglia della Chiesa di Santa Maria degli Angeli di Messina feature his work.211 He was made a knight of the Crown of Italy (Corona d’Italia).211

Gregorio was also one of Luciano Campisi’s teachers.

At his second marriage at age 57, he is noted as “Cavaliere.”



He died in the earthquake in 1908.