Edoardo Alfieri (1913-1998) remains one of Italy's most renowned modern sculptors with architectural-scale works carved in marble and cast in bronze installed throughout Italy. Alfieri is best known in Columbus as the creator of the 1955 Christopher Columbus statue that stood at Columbus City Hall.

This statue was presented as a gift from Genoa to Columbus, Ohio. The original idea of the statue as a gift from Genoa had evolved from conversations in the mid-1950s between Columbus Mayor Maynard E. Sensenbrenner and Genoa Mayor Vittorio Pertrusio.  This gift marks the beginning of the Sister City relationship between Columbus and Genoa, Columbus’s very first Sister City!