Alessandra Giannotti

The contribution aims to establish the figurative context of Venus with Cupid which is part of the Florentine
collection of Villa La Pietra belonging to Arthur Acton and his wife Hortense Mitchell.
The work, attributable to the 1620s, shows a clever synthesis of ideas drawn from Giambologna and Ammannati, overlaid by the teachings of Giovanni Caccini, interpreted in the light of a timid reformed naturalism. It seems attributable
to Chiarissimo Fancelli from Settignano, an artist who is still in search of a precise definition even today and who was
particularly appreciated by the Medici family and Queen Mary of France. The sculpture is stylistically close to the
works of art completed by the artist for the Grand Duke Cosimo II, showing a strong analogy with the Vulcano of the
Boboli Gardens, one of the marble pieces sculpted by Fancelli to complement the famous Island of Venus: a piece whose
protagonist has not yet been identified with certainty

The use of sandstone for sculpture is recorded going back to classical sources like Vitruvius and Pliny. In Renaissance Florence, artists prolifically employed pietra serena and pietra bigia, two variants of the so-called macigno of Fiesole. Re-examining Vasari, Borghini, Del Riccio, and others provides a more precise sense of the nomenclature and an understanding of how the materials were used. From devotional sculpture to secular (coats-of-arms, fireplaces, basins, etc.) the local stone, already employed by Donatello and followers, invaded the garden in the sixteenth century. In 1538, for the Medici villa at Castello, Niccolò Tribolo, on the wave of the nascent Etruscan revival and his interest in Serlio, associates macigno sculpture with rusticity, the perfect vehicle for the Tuscan order. His collaborators there (Pierino da Vinci, Antonio Lorenzi, Valerio Cioli, and Francesco Ferrucci del Tadda) will be the ones with lasting associations for sculpting in the local stone.

Il numero di "Opus Incertum" previsto per il 2019 raccoglierà i contributi presentati al convegno che si è svolto il 22 febbraio 2018 e che ha visto confrontarsi studiosi italiani e francesi. Il numero si apre anche alla proposta di ulteriori contributi, tenendo fermo l'orizzonte cronologico (1530-1630) e l'ambito geografico principale, Italia e Francia, con un'apertura al mondo tedesco. Il taglio epistemologico è fortemente interdisciplinare: dall'architettura, alla scultura; dalle ornamentazioni agli studi iconologici; dagli aspetti compositivi, alle tecniche costruttive. Le grotte artificiali, infatti, nei giardini europei, a partire dal XVI secolo, rappresentano una presenza connotativa dello spazio che accompagna le grandi residenze di delizia, acquisendo progressivamente-con l'apparato scultoreo e le monumentali fontane-una funzione centrale nella restituzione del programma iconologico di cui è investita la qualificazione del "verde": le...

In order to provide exhaustive documentation concerning the "Cave of the Animals", the atlas is composed of already known historical documents, as well as of new historical and scientific insights. In the first case, we provide some important figurative documents, fundamental from the historical point of view, regarding a long period between the beginning of the sixteenth century and the late twentieth century. In the second case, the atlas collects results of the work carried out by the GECO Lab of the University of Florence between 2013 and 2015, which illustrates the cave's complex hydraulic system and internal decorations. Regarding the photographic documentation carried out by GECO Lab, the images are the result of the processing of many photographs for obtaining overall high-resolution images. The panoramic image showing the whole Grotto in equirectangular projection is composed of 126 photographs, whereas the images of the basins are represented in a rectilinear...

Sebastiano Serlio, Niccolo tribolo and the legacy of Baldassarre Peruzzi: the altar of Madonna di Galliera a Bologna. The study of the two previously untranscribed documents relating to the altar of the church of Madonna di Galliera, one of the most prestigious Renaissance works in Bologna, gives us an insight into the antiquarian climate behind the project. The people involved, Bartolomeo and Ludovico Ghisilardi, Giovanni Beroaldo, Achille Bocchi, Alessandro Manzuoli and Sebastiano Serlio, the architect of the undertaking, all appear to have had connections with the local Accademia del Viridario, the scholarly institution of studies on Vitruvius, whose members included some of the Bolognese clients of Baldassarre Peruzzi. The relations of the Florentine sculptor Niccolo Tribolo with Peruzzi, whom he had known since the 1520s in Rome and for whom he had worked on the tomb of Adrian VI (Santa Maria dell'Anima), his descendence from Jacopo Sansovino, and his proximity to Giovanni ...

Through a systematic re-reading of archival documents, this article offers a precise review of the sculptures of the lateral portals of the inner facade of San Petronio in Bologna, clarifying the collaboration of Alfonso Lombardi and Francesco da Milano in the period 1527-1529. One can thus follow Francesco's evolution from simple stonecutter to sculptor, together with his brother Martino, in contact with the individuals who were active on the facade of the basilica, and in particular his contribution to the stone sculptures on the gables; the "Saint Dominic" begun by Zaccaria Zacchi in 1526 is also discussed. The author draws attention to the close interaction between Lombardi and Niccolo Tribolo, who was in Bologna between 1525 and 1527. Finally, a consideration of Alfonso's stucco work on the gables provides an opportunity to assess how Tuscan-Roman decorative types (also adopted in these years by Giulio Romano at the Palazzo Te in Mantua) stood in relation to t...

This is the first account of Francesco di Vicenzo Baccelli da Sangallo, hitherto confused with the better-known Francesco di Giuliano Giamberti da Sangallo. This gives coherent form to the latter's style and biography, ridding his oeuvre of the traditional and incorrect attributions of earlier scholarchip, which belong instead to the partly homonymous artist: three narrative scenes from the marble revetment of the Holy House of Loreto, some small putti from the same decorative project, and -in all likelihood- some elements of the interior of the New Sacristy in San Lorenzo, Florence. The article seeks to clarify Baccelli's evolution during the 1520s in Rome, Florence and the Tyrrhenian coast, in the shadow of Michelangelo, in contact with the workshop of Brtolome Ordonez in Versilia, and subsequently within the circle of Niccolo Tribolo and Raffaello da Montelupo, with whom he had collaborated profesionally in Loreto.

This article aims to define the personal and stylistic outline of the Master of the Unruly Children, the conventional name of a sculptor whose oeuvre was reconstructed by Wilhelm von Bode in 1890. Thanks to the discovery of two documents regarding the setting-up and subsequent termination of a partnership between Sandro di Lorenzo di Smeraldo and Santi Buglioni (January 1537-March 1538), it now seems increasingly plausible that the anonymous artista was in fact Sandro. The archival document makes it posible to recongnize the glazed terracotta statue of the "Young Saint John the Baptist in a Grotto", around which Bode established the initial nucleus of the sculptor's work, and to connect with it an unpublished "Penitent Saint Jerome" in the Acton-New York University collection in Florence.

Based on Giorgio Vasari and on a certain amount of documentary evidence, we can confidently state that Niccolo Tribolo was the artist responsible for designing and beginning the construction of the grotto. Devised to celebrate Cosimo I and Eleonora, with an allusion to the myth of Egeria and Numa Pompilius, Tribolo’s design may well have already included the presence of animals, possibly to accompany an Orpheus. A statue of Orpheus was certainly present in the 17th century, and I propose to identify it here with a late 16th century marble work now standing in the Boboli Garden. After Tribolo’s death, building work largely continued to comply with his design thanks to his assistants, led by Davide Fortini, with the addition of Vasari and of Bartolomeo Ammannati. In 1565, however, the iconographical programme changed, with the introduction of bronze birds by Giambologna and Ammannati assisted, according to hitherto unpublished documentary evidence, by Giovan Battista Del Tadda; while ...

The use of sandstone for sculpture is recorded going back to classical sources like Vitruvius and Pliny. In Renaissance Florence, artists prolifically employed pietra serena and pietra bigia, two variants of the so-called macigno of Fiesole. Re-examining Vasari, Borghini, Del Riccio, and others provides a more precise sense of the nomenclature and an understanding of how the materials were used. From devotional sculpture to secular (coats-of-arms, fireplaces, basins, etc.) the local stone, already employed by Donatello and followers, invaded the garden in the sixteenth century. In 1538, for the Medici villa at Castello, Niccolò Tribolo, on the wave of the nascent Etruscan revival and his interest in Serlio, associates macigno sculpture with rusticity, the perfect vehicle for the Tuscan order. His collaborators there (Pierino da Vinci, Antonio Lorenzi, Valerio Cioli, and Francesco Ferrucci del Tadda) will be the ones with lasting associations for sculpting in the local stone.

L’intervento punta a districare la complessa querelle attributiva nata intorno alla serie dei dodici busti in terracotta di Apostoli conservata nella Cattedrale di Fiesole, per la quale sono stati spesi i nomi di Giovan Francesco Rustici, Vincenzo de’ Rossi, Francesco Camilliani e Pietro Francavilla, fino a quello di un più generico maestro di fine Cinquecento, inizi Seicento. La rassegna di sculture, già ritenuta per una tradizione orale, proveniente dal Convento di Vallombrosa, soppresso nel 1866, è stata posta in relazione, se pur in modo problematico, con altri tre busti raffiguranti un Cristo (Calenzano, San Donato), San Giovanni Battista e la Vergine (Firenze, San Michele e Gaetano).
Il linguaggio vigorosamente espressivo delle terrecotte, dall’aria talvolta ‘caricata’, consiglia di disporne l’autografia nell’ambito di diverse botteghe fiorentine di fine Cinquecento, da quella di Valerio Cioli a quelle di Andrea di Michelangelo Ferrucci, Giovanni Caccini e altri maestri.
Nuove ricerche d’archivio consentono inoltre di datare l’arrivo fiesolano delle opere all’agosto del 1790, a seguito delle soppressioni leopoldine, quando l’originaria serie, composta da quattordici busti, venne smembrata. In quella occasione dodici di essi furono acquistati per il Capitolo della Cattedrale di Fiesole che ne stabilì la collocazione sopra gli armadi della Sagrestia Vecchia, nello stesso periodo in cui il vescovo Ranieri Mancini aveva avviato una trasformazione di quel complesso ecclesiastico.
Il gruppo di sculture, originariamente patinato a finto bronzo, può oggi essere ricondotto in via ipotetica a quello realizzato nel corso degli anni ottanta-novanta del secolo per la Compagnia di San Giovanni Battista dello Scalzo, ritenuto disperso. La serie, alla luce della varietà delle maestranze coinvolte, è da considerarsi una delle più rilevanti imprese della statuaria fiorentina allo scadere del Cinquecento, quando ad una più verace vena naturalistica leonardesca, declinata da Cioli e Ferrucci, si era andato affiancando lo sperimentalismo nordico della bottega di Giambologna.

Un attento scandaglio d'archivio consente di restituire l'immagine analitica di un rinascimento fiorentino più intimo e privato, legato alla commissione di piccole sculture in terracotta destinate alla preghiera e alla meditazione nella vita quotidiana, o dal significato talora apotropaico. Di tali opere, esaminate per autografia, iconografia, patinatura, collocazione e committenza, si misura anche la fortunata stagione internazionale otto novecentesca. Promossa da antiquari quali Stefano Bardini ed Elia Volpi, da studiosi come Henry Cole, John Charles Robinson e Wilhelm von Bode, essa vide protagonista la vivacissima comunità anglosassone presente a Firenze (Herbert Percy Horne, Charles Loeser, Hortense Mitchell e Arthur Acton), ottenendo una legittimazione estetica che contribuì a determinare l'accesso di piccole sculture fittili, di incerta attribuzione, nelle principali collezioni europee e americane.

Bases on Giorgio Vasari and on a certain amount of documentary evidence, we can confidently state that Niccolò Tribolo was the artist responsible for designing and starting to erect the grotto. Devised to celebrate Cosimo I and Eleonora, with an allusion to the myth of Egeria and Numa Pompilius, Tribolo's design may well have already included the presence of animals, possibly to accompany an Orpheus. A statue of Orpheus was certainly seen in it in the 17th century, and I propose identifying it here with a late 16th century marble work now in the Boboli Garden. After Tribolo's death, building work largely continued to comply with his design thanks to his assistants led by Davide Fortini, with the addition of Vasari and of Bartolomeo Ammannati. In 1565, however, the iconographical programme changed, with the introduction of bronze birds by Giambologna and Ammannati assisted, according to hitherto unpublished documentary evidence, by Giovan Battista Del Tadda; while the stone animals, carved chiefly by experts who trained with Tribolo such as Francesco Ferrucci Del Tadda and Antonio Lorenzi, did not appear on the scene until 1580–95.

Si aggiungono qui due inedite terrecotte (San Pietro e Crocifissione con San Giovanni, la Vergine e la Maddalena), conservate in collezione privata, al catalogo del raro scultore fiorentino Girolamo Ticciati. L’intervento fa il punto sull’attività fittile dell’allievo di Giovan Battista Foggini, ed esamina inoltre altre sue opere poco note. Si precisa così la linea riformista promossa dall’artista nella città granducale, improntata, nei primi anni Trenta del Settecento, ad un comporre pausato di marca classicista, distante dall’esuberanza plastica del suo maestro. Il saggio ripercorre l’attività del Ticciati e la sua rete di frequentazioni di alcuni tra i principali intellettuali del momento, quali Anton Francesco Gori e i soci dell’Accademia fiorentina della Colombaria, di cui lo stesso scultore fu un vivace membro.

This contribution analyzes the visual sources of the remarkable naturalism of Gherardo Cibo (Rome or Genua, 1512 – Arcevia, 1600). A member of the Vigerio Della Rovere family, Cibo was considered during the 1560’s the best painter and draftsman of plants and landscapes by the renowned botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli. Although he considered himself a dilettante (amateur), Cibo was extremely receptive of both the local legacy of Raphael and the Northern influences in the depiction of nature and landscape and covered a prominent role as a court artist in Urbino and Pesaro. This contribution aims to draw an outline of the origins of landscape drawing and painting in the Della Rovere Court culture during the Cinquecento: within this context, Cibo established an original artistic language which will be extremely instrumental for the development of this genre in the region of the Marche up to Taddeo and Federico Zuccari (a new unpublished landscape drawing of the latter is presented here), and Federico Barocci.

This is the first account of Francesco di Vincenzo Baccelli da
Sangallo, hitherto confused with the better-known Francesco di Giuliano Giamberti da Sangallo. This gives coherent form to the latter’s style and biography, ridding his oeuvre of the traditional and incorrect attributions of earlier scholarship, which belong instead to the partly homonymous artist: three narrative scenes from the marble revetment of the Holy House of Loreto, some small putti from the same decorative project, and – in all likelihood – some elements of the interior of the New Sacristy in San Lorenzo, Florence. The article seeks to clarify Baccelli’s evolution during the 1520s in Rome, Florence and the Tyrrhenian coast, in the shadow of Michelangelo, in contact with the workshop of Bartolomé Ordóñez in Versilia, and subsequently within the circle of Niccolò Tribolo and Raffaello da Montelupo, with whom he had collaborated professionally in Loreto.

Through a systematic re-reading of archival documents, this article offers a precise review of the sculptures on the lateral portals of the inner façade of San Petronio in Bologna, clarifying the collaboration of Alfonso Lombardi and Francesco da Milano in the period 1527-1529. One can thus follow Francesco’s evolution from simple stone-cutter to sculptor, together with his brother Martino, in contact with the individuals who were active on the façade of the basilica, and in particular his contribution to the stone sculptures on the gables; the Saint Dominic begun by Zaccaria Zacchi in 1526 is also discussed. The author draws attention to the close interaction between Lombardi and
Niccolò Tribolo, who was in Bologna between 1525 and 1527. Finally, a consideration of Alfonso’s stucco work on the gables provides an opportunity to assess how Tuscan-Roman decorative types (also adopted in these years by Giulio Romano at the Palazzo Te in Mantua) stood in relation to the Emilian terracotta tradition.

Presentation of the exhibition curated by Andrea Baldinotti for the International Center on Landscape in Tuscany PaTos of the University for Foreigners of Siena.
The digital exhibition presents a beautiful selection of photographic images and short film clips shot by famous directors in well-known and lesser-known historical gardens in Tuscany.
The exhibition will soon be visible at the following link
https://www.centropatos.it/landscape-archive/

The main point of this paper is to investigate the iconography of Perseus liberating Andromeda and at the same time that of Perseus with the head of Medusa, in the context of sixteenth-century Florentine art.  In fact, from the first decade of the century, these two subjects, often interrelated, became the prerogative of the Medici family and its close associates.  This theme, told in the fourth book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, came to represent the triumph of good over evil, and therefore became synonymous with good government.  The places where this subject was displayed varied widely. Sometimes it was represented in refined domestic pictures or studiolo works (Piero di Cosimo, the Master of Serumido, Perino del Vaga, and Giorgio Vasari).  At other times, it was interpreted in works of sculpture in the piazzas and gardens of Florence (Benvenuto Cellini, Battista Lorenzi, Vincenzo Danti, and Domenico and Giovan Battista Pieratti).  Finally, representations can also be found on the versos of commemorative medals (Francesco del Prato and Antonio Selvi). Through an investigation conducted in contemporary literary and theatrical texts, light can be shed on the rich significance that this mythological episode assumed in Florence from early Renaissance up to beginning of 17th century.

L’intervento enuclea due temi di approfondimento: l’attività svolta da Niccolò Tribolo all’interno del cantiere della Sagrestia Nuova tra il 1533 e gli anni quaranta del Cinquecento, dai quali si evince l’apprezzamento particolare tributato allo scultore da Michelangelo. Questi gli assegnò infatti l’esecuzione di ben due opere, la Terra e il Cielo, mai portate completamente a compimento.
Tribolo, uno dei massimi esegeti dell’originale ricerca formale michelangiolesca, s’incorona in Sagrestia precoce copista delle invenzioni buonarrotiane ed erede diretto del maestro all’indomani della nomina ad “Architettore” della chiesa di San Lorenzo, quando proprio a lui spettò l’allestimento del Giorno e della Notte, del Crepuscolo e dell’Aurora.
Segue poi una circostanziata indagine sulla figura del Francesco da Sangallo presente in Sagrestia tra i collaboratori di Michelangelo, per la quale si propone l’identificazione con Francesco Baccelli da Sangallo, invece che con il più noto Francesco di Giuliano.