Giambologna and the Rape of the Sabines

Part I

Hendrick Goltzius, portrait of Giambologna

The largest sculpture in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria is the Rape of the Sabines by Giambologna. Michelangelo’s powerful but slender David positioned near the Loggia in front of the Palazzo Vecchio nearby, exceeds five meters in height, and certainly was an incentive for Giambologna to create a monumental work 4.10 meters high.

The Rape of the Sabine Women on the base in the Loggia dei Lanzi

Detail of the sculptures

These are three intertwined characters where a young Roman kidnaps one of the Sabine women by holding her up while trapping a frightened and desperate old man between his legs. The classic style with which Giambologna sculpts the work is in accordance with the myth of the “Rape of the Sabines” according to which the founder of Rome Romulus kidnaps the women of the nearby Sabina region by deception to procreate and populate the newborn city.

Giambologna, marble sculptor

Although Giambologna preferred to make clay models to be cast in bronze with lost wax, he executed the work in a single monolithic block of marble which presents large masses and voids arranged asymmetrically while maintaining the ideal and real weight concentrated at the bottom; he was able to give the set of figures an “S” twist which allows the monument to have the innovative characteristic of three-dimensionality; in fact, it was made to be placed in the center of a space where it can be seen from all sides, as Michelangelo also claimed:


pyramidal figure, serpentine and multiplied by one, two and three […] because the greatest grace and prettiness that a figure can have is that it shows movement, which painters call fury of the figure […] and to represent this motion there is no it is a more adapted shape than that of the flame of the fire […] so that, when the figure has this shape, it will be beautiful,

as in fact Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo tells us in his “Treatise on the Art of Painting” of 1585.

The sculpture is finished

Giambologna completed the execution of the work in 1583. It had been commissioned by the Grand Duke Francesco I dei Medici, as can be deduced from a letter that Simone Fortuna wrote to the Duke of Urbino on 17 October 1581 in which he informed him that a group would soon emerge of three statues opposite Donatello’s Judith in the Loggia dei Pisani [the Judith was then placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi].
The sculpture was signed with the inscription “OPVS IOANNIS BOLONII FLANDRI MDLXXXII” [by Giovanni de Boulogne of Flanders, 1582].

Portrait of Francesco I de’ Medici by Scipione Pulzone, 1590, Uffizi Gallery

The meaning of the sculpture and the Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany

The Grand Duke Ferdinando I dei Medici found the work beautiful and, as Raffaello Borghini writes in his “Il Riposo” of 1584, wanted to have it placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi.
It is curious how Giambologna wrote on 13 June 1579 to the Duke of Parma Ottavio Farnese that with this work he wanted to “give space to the wisdom and study of art”, that is to express the strength of love of the young lover, the beauty of the beloved woman, and the desperation of her old husband. And thanks to the classical sculptural style, nudity did not offend the sensitivity of the Catholic Reform. Nothing to do, however, with the “Rape of the Sabines”.

The sculpture becomes "Rape of the Sabine Women"

But Raffaello Borghini confirms that originally Giambologna wanted to sculpt three figures that interacted in movement with each other, and that however he made the sculptor change his mind, and in fact he writes:

he was told, I don’t know by whom, that it would have been well done, to continue the story of Perseus by Benvenuto [a work by Benvenuto Cellini present under the Loggia dei Lanzi] that he had pretended for the kidnapped girl Andromeda wife of Perseus, for her kidnapper Fineo, her uncle, and for the old Cepheus, father of Andromeda.But one day Raffaello Borghini having come to Giambologna’s workshop, and having seen to his great delight this beautiful group of figures and understood the story, that must have meant, he showed signs of amazement, of which Giambologna realizing, begged him a lot to give him his opinion on this, who concluded that in no way should he give that name to his statues, but that would be better the Rape of the Sabine Women; which story having been judged apt, gave its name to the work.

The plaster model

Giambologna executed, as almost all sculptors used to do, a model in clay or raw earth, which fortunately was not destroyed and which is kept in the Academy of Florence.
From the clay model, which was particularly fragile and friable when dry, a plaster positive was normally drawn, more resistant than raw clay, used as a reference for sculpting the work in marble. A plaster model, probably the original by Giambologna, was found in the early 1900s by Marino Marinelli, father of Ferdinando Marinelli Jr.

Academy of Drawing, original clay model

The assistant Pietro Francavilla

One of the assistants of Giambologna’s studio for the marble sculpture of the mammoth work was Pietro Francavilla (Italianized name of Pierre de Franqueville) who worked on it since 1574.
When the title of The Rape of the Sabine Women became definitive, Giambologna executed a bronze bas-relief to be affixed to the base which made it clear the subject of the monument, as Cellini had done for the base of the Perseus.

Detail of the bronze plate Rape of the Sabine women by Giambologna


Michelangelo and the David - Part III

The Masterpiece and its history

The execution

There is no news on how Michelangelo worked to arrive at the finished David. We only know that the block entrusted to him had already been badly rough-hewn by others to make a giant prophet to be placed on the spurs of the Cathedral, without ever being finished.
However, Michelangelo managed to “pull” out of the block the David, one of the marvels of the Renaissance, of perfect proportions.

Normally the sculptors followed (and in some sculpture studios they still follow) a particular process, which even Michelangelo would have followed if the block of marble had been virgin, which consisted of various phases:

the first was a visit to the Carrara marble quarry, in this case the Fantiscritti quarry, to look for and choose the right block for the sculpture to be made; the block had to be of white marble without veins and without visible nor hidden cracks. Only quarrymen and sculptors with great experience were able to understand, from the outside of the block, how it appeared inside.

Once the perfect block was found, the sculptor sketched the volumes that the finished sculpture would have had on all its sides, in black chalk or red chalk, then asking the quarryman to roughly shape the block by removing the unnecessary ones.

Drawings by Michelangelo for the marble quarrymen, with indications for the first roughing out of the volumes

The block, brought from the quarry to the port on carts pulled by a few pairs of oxen, was loaded onto a robust boat which, in the case of Florence, sailed up the Arno from its mouth near Pisa to a port near the city, normally the port of Signa. Here it was again loaded onto a cart pulled by oxen and taken to the sculptor’s studio. For the block entrusted to Michelangelo, the phase of choosing the marble and transporting it to the courtyard of the Opera del Duomo in Florence was not followed by Michelangelo but by others.

Transportation of the marble block to the port

The Navicelli

Loading of marble blocks onto a Navicello

Despite what he made Condivi write for his autobiography, where Michelangelo claims to have always faced marble directly without drawings or sketches or clay models, normally he too, like the other sculptors, performed all of the above.

To understand the work required to make a marble sculpture, we can follow the creation of a full-size marble replica of David. Instead of the clay model presumably modeled by Michelangelo, a positive plaster model is used, made from the negative cast taken from the original work.

This is placed next to the marble block.

The model placed next to the marble to be carved

A first rough cut of the volumes is made.

The first rough cut

The ancient system of the manual pantograph is still used, called in the sculptors’ jargon “macchinetta”, a system already practiced by Greek and Roman sculptors. It consists of transferring three-dimensional points taken from the plaster model onto the raw marble. The greater the number of points reported, the greater the fidelity of the marble sculpture.

Carving with pointing method with the pantograph called “macchinetta”

Carving with pointing method with the pantograph called “macchinetta”

Carving with pointing method with the pantograph called “macchinetta”

Carving with pointing method with the pantograph called “macchinetta”

Carving with pointing method with the pantograph called “macchinetta”

Carving with pointing method with the pantograph called “macchinetta”

Carving with pointing method with the pantograph called “macchinetta”

In this way we proceed to eliminate the excess marble layer after layer, getting closer and closer to the model, and the sculpture goes on by layers until the work is perfectly equal to the original.

Getting closer to the original by removing layer by layer

Obviously, when the sculptor performs his sculpture, he creates clay models with few details, which he will sculpt directly on the marble.

When all the volumes are finished, which for the replica means that they are identical to the original, the work of smoothing and finishing the surfaces begins, performed with special files and emery paper; Michelangelo also often worked the surfaces of his works with ever finer steps (chisels), deliberately leaving the relative signs visible.

Finished smoothing and finishing


The Fountain of Neptune in Piazza Signoria and the bronze "Naiads"

Duke Cosimo I had commissioned the construction of the Biancone fountain at the north-east corner of Palazzo Vecchio, so that the central figure of Neptune would be in line with the other large statues of Michelangelo’s David and Hercules and Cacus of Bandinelli.

Piazza della Signoria, Firenze

The project for a fountain in Piazza della Signoria is mentioned for the first time in a letter from Bandinelli to Jacopo Guidi dated March 1550.
In 1559 Vasari went to Rome and proposed Ammannati’s project to Michelangelo, in which Neptune has his arms raised.

Anonymous, project for the Square’s Fountain, 1560, Louvre, Recto Anonymous, project for the Square’s Fountain, 1560, Louvre, Verso Reconstruction of the project for the Square’s Fountain from the anonymous drawing in the Louvre

As can also be seen on a medal by Pier Paolo Galeotti from 1565 relating to the project for the fountain, Neptune actually has his arms raised.

Cosimo I medal, Pier Paolo Galeotti, 1556-1567, Bargello Museum

With Michelangelo’s consent it was easy to convince Cosimo I to assign the task of the fountain to Ammannati (also because Bandinelli had died in 1560) who gave a quick look at Cellini’s project but without even looking at the projects of other competitors such as Giambologna, Danti (and perhaps Vincenzo de’Rossi and Simone Mosca).
The marble Neptune was executed with his arms lowered: even so Ammannati did not sculpt it in a single block but several parts of marble joined together.

Jacques Callogt, Piazza della Signoria, 1617, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, detail Jacques Stella, etching, The Fountain of Neptune, 1621, detail, Uffizi
Anonymous, The Fountain of Neptune, early 17th century. Pitti Palace deposits, detail Anonymous, drawing, view of Piazza Signoria, 17th century
Lasinio, engraving, view of Piazza Signoria, 17th century Giuseppe Zocchi, Piazza della Signoria, first half of the 18th century

Cosimo I wanted most of the basin and the marble decorations to be done with the “Mischio di Seravezza” marble with violet inclusions, a quarry of his exclusive property and use.

The bathtub in “Mischio marble” from Seravezza

Four bronze figures were placed at the four corners of the marble basin, two Satyrs and two Naiads (in reality they are Nereids, nymphs of the sea); and in fact Domenico Mellini (1566) speaks of Nereids, Raffaello Borghini (1584) writes that “the two females” were depicted for Thetis and for Doris.
In fact, Thetis has a shield as her attribute, with reference to her gift that she gave to her son Achilles. The attributes of the other Nereid (Doris), in addition to the dolphin, a buccina and a queen’s diadem, identify her as Amphitrite, wife of Neptune and therefore queen of the sea.

The fountain of Neptune, Piazza della Signoria, Firenze

Attic black-figure hydria, Thetis giving Achilles the shield made by Hephaestus, 575-550 BC, Louvre

Thetis Doris

They are mannerist reworkings of the two marine deities whose proportions seem to draw inspiration from the school of Fontanebleau, of which many engravings were widespread at the time of Ammannati: in particular, the famous shield of Achilles described by Homer in the Iliad is wholly symbolic, in fact it presents a battle generic in bas-relief conducted with rapid style, of great spontaneity and in some places just mentioned.

Drawing of Achilles’ shield according to Homer’s description (Iliad, XVIII, 478-608)

Thetis with shield Thetis, detail of the shield

If in the past the execution of the two Nereids, later renamed “Naiads”, had been attributed to various mannerist sculptors, and in particular to Giambologna, critics have long since attributed them to Ammannati, as well as the two Satyrs.

The replicas of the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry

For Hitler’s visit to Florence in 1938, cleaning and restoration interventions were ordered, in particular of the bronzes present in Piazza Signoria, followed by podestà Paolo Venerosi Pesciolini and cared for by the municipal architect Alfredo Lenzi. They were thus cleaned up by Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., founder of the homonymous Artistic Foundry; on that occasion Marinelli asked and obtained permission to make negative moulds directly on the originals.
Those moulds then passed to his nephew Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. thanks to whom the identical copies of Ammannati’s “Naiads” exhibited in the Bazzanti Gallery on Lungarno Corsini were made.

Hitler’s visit to Florence, Piazza S. Croce

Hitler’s visit to Florence, Piazza Signoria

Replica of the two Naiads cast by the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry, on sale at the Bazzanti Gallery in Florence


Michelangelo and the David - Part II

The Masterpiece and its history

The History

Michelangelo had a splendid life but also a very difficult one, which he often complained about: discouragement due to body fatigue, lack of friends of any kind, political and religious crises, extreme avarice towards himself and his others (but not with family members he felt guilty towards) so much so that he fled Florence while he was directing the fortification works for the nearby siege of the city, for fear of seeing his own money taken to support the expenses of the war, from the passion senile for the young and beautiful Tomaso Cavalieri, to the spiritual love for Vittoria Colonna.

Michelangelo, portrait, Daniele da Volterra Tommaso dei Cavalieri, Michelangelo, Musée Bonnat, Bayonne Vittoria Colonna, Sebastiano del Piombo, National Museum of art of Catalonia, Barcelona

At the same time his art was immediately admired and venerated by his contemporaries, it fascinated the great personalities he commissioned, historians, his disciples and contemporary and subsequent artists. His life was written by the biographers Giovio, Vasari, Condivi while he was still alive. He was admired by Cellini, Tintoretto, Buontalenti, Greco.

Giorgio Vasari, Self portrait Paolo Giovio, Cristofano dell’Altissimo, Uffizi

His sculptural style is the watershed between the Renaissance, of which it is the ripe fruit, and the beginning of Mannerism. In the unscrupulous use of the “unfinished” Michelangelo brings an impressive modernity to sculpture for the first time, both unresearched as in the works he actually could not or did not want to finish, and where he used it in the works in which unfinished areas deliberately appear alongside finished and polished areas.
Many hypotheses have been made to explain the meaning of this way of sculpting, and still the critics do not agree. The fact remains that it creates deep sensations and emotions in the viewer.

Michelangelo, Tondo Taddei, Royal Academy, London Michelangelo, Pietà Bandini, 1550, detail, Opera del Duomo of Florence

Il David

When Michelangelo dictated his autobiography to Condivi, he wanted to highlight that he always did everything alone without help, even the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and even alone he declares that he never used the normal methods that sculptors have always used: he left almost no preparatory drawings for his sculptures, having burned them all before he died, he never made clay models, even if there is a life-size clay and wax model of his at the Academy of Design Arts.

Clay model of river divinity, Michelangelo, 1524, Academy of Design Arts

For the David the situation in which Michelangelo found himself was different, the block of marble had already been roughed out even if badly. Michelangelo had to think the shape of his David forced from the existing blank. However, he was able to perform perhaps his greatest masterpiece even with these difficulties.
David is the young biblical hero who, challenging the giant warrior Goliath to a duel, kills him with a stone thrown with a slingshot and then takes him off with his sword, making the Israeli army led by King Saul win against the Philistines.
Michelangelo sculpts him with the stone still to be thrown, Goliath is still alive; in the two Davids by Donatello, the one in marble and the one in bronze, Goliath was killed and his head was cut off, the sword also appears in the bronze, as well as in that of Verrocchio.

Donatello, David, 1408, Bargello Museum Donatello, David, 1440, Bargello Museum Verrocchio, David, 1469, Bargello Museum

The Florentine Republic was led albeit indirectly by the Medici family, who always found it prudent to highlight and insist on freedom from tyranny.
Already in 1416 the Signoria of Florence had purchased the marble David that Donatello had sculpted in 1408 placing it in the Sala dell’ Orologio of Palazzo Vecchio, a symbol of freedom against any dictator. At his feet he had carved the inscription Pro patria fortiter dimicantibus etiam adversus terribilissimos hostes Dii prestant auxilium, i.e. The gods give support to those who fight vigorously for their country even against the most formidable enemies.
Cosimo the Elder also wanted the statue of a bronze David for his courtyard of Palazzo Medici in via Larga to underline how the Medici too were advocates of freedom against tyranny, and asked Donatello for it who sculpted a more pagan and naked David which we know to have been in 1469 in his Palace. However, when the Medici were expelled from the city in 1495, the people who raided the Palazzo transported the statue to Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the freedom of the Republic.

Cosimo the Elder, Pontormo, 1520, Uffizi

The message of Michelangelo’s David was the same: God would protect the city of Florence and its Republican government based in Palazzo Vecchio from any enemy of freedom.
Michelangelo’s David is a completely naked young man, and it is the first time since Rome that a large statue has been executed completely naked.
The pose of resting the weight on one of the two legs, which leaves the other free as in the classical heroes at rest, which happens to the various Davids, derives from classical art and also reappears from the little Hercules symbolizing the Force, present in the pulpit of the Baptistery of Pisa, sculpted by Nicola Pisano.

Nicola Pisano, Hercules, Pulpit of the Baptistery, 1260, Pisa

When in 1537 Cosimo I dei Medici becomes Duke of the Republic of Florence, he chooses to change the symbol, no longer the republican David, but Hercules against whose strength it is useless to fight.
He has the statue of Hercules who conquers Cacus sculpted and, while leaving Michelangelo’s David in its place, he places it on the other side of the Porta del Palazzo Vecchio, the meaning of which is clear: God is no longer with the Republic, now he is Hercules , symbol of Cosimo, and of the new branch of the Medici, which commands.

Hercules and Cacus, Baccio Bandinelli, 1534, Piazza della Signoria

Ercole e Caco, Baccio Bandinelli, 1534, Piazza della Signoria


The David by Donatello

It was Cosimo dei Medici the Elder who, around 1440, commissioned Donatello to create a bronze statue of David cast in lost wax.
In 1420 his father Giovanni di Bicci dei Medici, founder of the Banco dei Medici and great patron of art in Florence, left the management of his activities to Cosimo dei Medici the Elder, who was as skilled as or more than his father, enormously expanded the circle of business by opening branches of the Medici Bank in most of Europe. Politically shrewd, he managed to win the favor of the antipope John XXIII, and Pope Martin V who replaced him in 1417, requested a large loan from the Banco dei Medici, and Cosimo granted it to him: friendship with the current pope was very important for the Banco dei Medici.

Giovanni di Bicci, Cristofano dell’Altissimo, 1562, Uffizi Gallery Cosimo dei Medici il Vecchio, Pontormo, 1520, Uffizi Gallery Papa Martino V, copy from Pisanello, Palazzo Colonna, Rome

Upon the death of his father Giovanni di Bicci in 1429, Cosimo managed to create a pro-Medici party in the government of the city which was an enemy of the oligarchic faction headed by the Albizi through alliances and marriages with the great families such as the Tornabuoni, the Salviati, the Bardi, the Cavalcanti. He managed to appear pro-popular while simultaneously transforming the Medici family from nouveau riche to aristocracy.
Having failed in 1430 the plan of the oligarchic government of the Florentine Republic to have Cosimo exiled from Florence on various pretexts, due to the opposition of Niccolò da Uzzano, when Uzzano died in 1433 they managed to have Cosimo imprisoned by accusing him of wanting to become dictator of Florence.

Cosimo dei Medici the Elder, Pontormo, 1520, Uffizi Gallery

In prison he was isolated, but he bribed the warden Federico Malavolti who allowed him to warn his party which organized a popular uprising, and the oligarchic government of Rinaldo degli Albizi was forced to let him out, condemning him to exile from the city.
Cosimo with a crowd of friends and servants stopped in Venice, where he lived as a great lord, controlling and directing the government of Florence: in 1434 he had a group of pro-Medicean rulers appointed who had him recalled to Florence; Cosimo in turn had his enemies exiled.
It was from the Palazzo Medici in via Larga, designed by Michelozzo, that he managed city politics, extorting his enemies with the taxman and always making sure that in the government of Florence there was a majority of men who strictly trusted him.

Palazzo Medici, Michelozzo, before the enlargement of the Riccardi, 1684, Del Migliore, Florence città nobilissima

Palazzo Medici, Michelozzo, circa mid-15th century, with the right side subsequently enlarged by two portals by the Riccardi

The bronze David was modeled and cast in bronze with lost wax method by Donatello around 1435-1440, before the artist was called to Padua in 1443 to sculpt Christ and the bas-reliefs for the altar of the Basilica of S. Antonio in Padua and then the monument to Gattamelata.

Portrait of Donatello, Paolo Uccello, Louvre

David by Donatello

It is assumed that it was placed in the great hall on the first floor (piano nobile) and in 1457 (or in any case before the arrival in Florence in 1459 of Galeazzo Maria Sforza hosted in the Palazzo and of Pope Pius II Piccolomini) it was brought to the courtyard of Palazzo Medici , which Cosimo was furnishing, and placed in the center on a red porphyry column probably salvaged and adapted from Rome, in turn resting on a white marble base sculpted by Desiderio da Settignano with four harpies at the corners. In David the thick bronze crown of oak leaves at the base framed the support of the bronze to the marble of the column.
A reconstruction of the base was made in fiberglass by the Bargello Museum and is the one shown here in the photographs

Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Piero del Pollaiolo, 1471, Uffizi Gallery

Pope Pius II Piccolomini, Pinturicchio, second half of the 15th century

Base reconstructed in fiberglass from the Bargello Museum for the exhibition at the Bargello of the original Donatello restored in November 2008

Bargello, replica photo of the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry’s David di Donatello on the base reconstructed in fiberglass from the Bargello Museum for the exhibition at the Bargello of the original restored in November 2008

Bargello, foto di replica del David di Donatello della FAFM sulla base ricostruita in vetroresina dal Museo del Bargello per l’esposizione al Bargello dell’ originale restaurato nel novembre 2008

The height of about 160 cm of the bronze together with that of the base made it possible to reach a total height of about 3.5 meters. And in fact the work was created to be looked at from below. Gentile Becchi, an educator who lived in Palazzo Medici, dictated an epigraphic inscription that accompanied the David:
“Victor est quisquis patriam tuetur. / Frangit immanis Deus hostis iras. / En puer grandem domuit tiramnum./ Vincite cives!”
“Whoever defends his country is bound to win, / for God breaks the furious resolves of the most fearsome of enemies. / Here is the boy who defeated a huge tyrant. Citizens, to victory!” (Caglioti 2000, p. 205);
the epigraph makes David a heroic symbol of great political as well as moral strength. With the door of the building open, it was visible to all who passed in front of it (as Marco Parenti underlined in his letter of 1469 where he describes the marriage of Lorenzo the Magnificent to Clarice Orsini sent to Filippo Strozzi in Naples).
When the Medici were expelled from Florence in 1495, the Florentine Republic, which had requisitioned the family’s homes, took possession of their works of art in the Palazzo Medici, including the David di Donatello, which they transferred to the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Priori.
In 1511 the David was struck by lightning, and from that moment on he appeared and disappeared from the courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio: in 1555, when Duke Cosimo I and his family lived in the Palazzo Vecchio, the David was removed from the courtyard and was closed in a warehouse; it was replaced by the Putto with the Dolphin executed in bronze by Verrocchio taken from the Medici villa of Careggi, and was placed on the porphyry fountain created by Francesco del Tadda in the center of the courtyard.
The David reappeared with its column base in the courtyard in 1570 in a niche in the east porch, but in 1592 it was again removed and replaced by Pierino da Vinci’s Samson on the Philistine.
Until 1638 we do not know where it was, the year in which it appears, according to the inventories of Palazzo Pitti, in the Sala Bianca. It then reappears when it is transferred in 1778 to the Uffizi gallery.
Finally in 1865 it was housed in the Bargello, transformed into the National Museum and here it stopped.
David is a naked youth with one foot on the severed head of the Giant Goliath. The naked body is flaunted in the attitude of a winner; he wears a laurel-wreathed Mercury-like brimmed hat with a lost plume cap; at his feet he has ancient-type footwear, in his right hand he holds a large flat-pointed sword that rests on Goliath’s helmet, in his left a sling stone. Goliath has a winged helmet where a bas-relief appears on the visible side. David’s sword indicates precisely the small bas-relief which therefore probably highlights the “moral” of the entire sculpture. It represents a chariot pulled by two winged and naked putti; on the chariot is enthroned a wingless figure who receives gifts from two other winged putti; behind the throne appears a naked and fat character without wings who has an amphora at his feet. The scene seems to be taken from an ancient Roman gem, probably from the Medici collection; it is probable that the seated figure is Bacchus accompanied by Silenus, and that the winged putto is offering him a cup of wine. Being on Goliath’s helmet, it could be the representation of incontinence, pride and arrogance, vices associated with Goliath (and the tyrannical enemies of Florence) conquered by the virtue of David (the Republic of Florence, crypto-managed by Cosimo).

David by Donatello

David by Donatello, detail of the headdress David by Donatello, detail of the shoe

David di Donatello, detail of right hand with sword

David by Donatello, detail of the left hand with the stone Donatello’s David, detail of the head of Goliath

That it was placed high above the column is proven by many details: his head and gaze are turned downwards, the only way to be able to see his face, but also by a series of anatomical irregularities, such as the shoulder blades and lowered buttocks in the flattened and then broken backside and in all the angular joints that Donatello performed as an optical correction for the high placement of the statue, the strong rotation of Goliath’s head to make the plate with the cherubs visible, many unfinished parts that would have been hidden by the garland protruding on the base. Comparing the impression of David at eye level with the same place above, completely changes the grandeur and vigor of the character and the meaning of the helmeted head of Goliath.

David by Donatello, detail 

David by Donatello, before restoration David by Donatello, after the restoration

The David, which had been commissioned by a private individual, would be displayed so high in a private home, Donatello sculpted the nude David for the first time. His childhood, his sanctity, humility and warrior heroism would have saved Donatello and the client any suspicion of heterodoxy. Donatello was also inspired by classical sculpture, almost always nude. Only after a few generations, with Michelangelo, did another completely naked David appear.
The David is one of the less successful castings from a technical point of view: it has many cold-assembled plugs to correct the deficiencies, it has various cracks, parts which were not reached by the bronze during the casting, the need for remelting to reconstruct parts that did not come (clearly visible is the crown of the hat, the back of the helmet of Goliath, part of the base wreath, lack of fusion under the chin). The many movements of the statue have caused other damages probably also due to falls, such as the breakage and loss of a lock of hair on the left shoulder.

David by Donatello, detail 

David by Donatello, detail 

David by Donatello, detail 

In a letter from Gentile Becchi, tutor in the Medici house and friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent, a fitting judgment appears on the type of work by Donatello:

…Contende la magnificentia con l’ utilità, l’ utilità chol p[iacere] et novità… ma perché l’ oficio mio con Voi è asuto più riprendere che lodare, un [man]camento vi viddi, et questo è quello hebbe Donatello et qualunque ha più inventio[n]e [e sa] bozzare più che finire, ordire più che essere patiente a tessere. (ASF, Mediceo avanti il Principato, XXXVII, 489)

And in fact Donatello took care of the final effect of his sculptures so that they gave the viewer the effect he had wanted, without wasting too much time on details and finishes, because he believed the rough and unfinished surface would have given greater strength and expressiveness to his works.
A very interesting detail is the cold scratching of a large part of the surface of the sculpture, probably to limit its reflections.

David by Donatello, detail 

David by Donatello, detail 

David by Donatello, detail 

David by Donatello, detail 

The hair, spared from the rain thanks to the visor of his hat, tells us that in many parts Donatello had highlighted some parts of the work with gold leaf (“a missione”), as he did for example in Attis.

David by Donatello, detail 

Attis by Donatello, detail 


Michelangelo and the David - Part I

The Masterpiece and its history

The History

When Michelangelo signed the contract with the Opera del Duomo in Florence in August 1501 for the execution of the marble statue of a David, he was 26 years old, and had already executed a series of works, which later became “classics”; including in Rome, in the very last years of the 15th century, the Bacchus (now in the Bargello) and the Pietà in St. Peter’s in the Vatican, the only work he signed on the oblique waist on the chest of the Madonna “Michelangelus Bonarotus Florentinus Faciebat”.

Michelangelo’s Bacchus, Bargello National Museum, Florence

Pieta by Michelangelo, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican

Pieta by Michelangelo (detail), St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican

The contract for the David read …ad faciendum et perficiendum et perfece finendumquendam hominem, vocatur gigantem, abozatum, rachiorum novem ex marmore, existtentem in dicta opera, olim abozatum per magistrum Agostinum… de florentia et male abozatum…
That is, Michelangelo should have perfectly sculpted and completed a man defined as giant with a sketched marble existing in the Opera del Duomo, poorly sketched in the past by the Florentine master Agostino.
He began the work as required by a note in the contract:

Incepit dictus Michelangelus laborare et sculpire dicrum gigantem die 13 settembris 1501 ed die lunede mane, quamquam prius videlicet die 9 eiusden uno vel duobus ictibus scarpelli substulisset quoddam nisum quem habebat in pectore: seu dicta die incepit firmiter et fortier laborare, dicta die 13 et die lune summo mane…
That is, the aforementioned Michelangelo had begun to sculpt the said giant on the morning of September 13, 1501 although on the 9th he had removed a “knot” of marble from his chest with one or two strokes of the chisel: but he began to work on it steadily and more strongly on the said day Monday 13 in the morning.

With a few strokes of the chisel, Michelangelo had wanted to ascertain the quality and condition of the rough-hewn block of marble, which had remained outdoors for a long time having been entrusted to Agostino di Duccio years earlier, in 1463.
From a document of the Opera del Duomo dated 18 August 1464 (Poggi, Il Duomo di Firenze 1909)
it appears that it was the draft of a gigantic Prophet to be placed on one of the spurs of the Cathedral.
Agostino di Duccio left the sculpture sketchy, and therefore on 6 May 1476 the marble was given by the Opera del Duomo to Antonio Rossellino to be finished, but he too left it in a sketchy state.

Vasari, however, gives us other news:
“This was marble, nine arm lengths, in which by bad luck Simone da Fiesole had begun a giant, and the work was so badly tanned that it had pierced him between his legs and made everything badly managed and crippled; so that the workmen of Santa Maria del Fiore, who were working on this thing, without bothering to finish it, had abandoned it, and it had been like this for many years and was nevertheless about to wait.”

So Simone Ferrucci da Fiesole was the sculptor who left the badly rough-hewn block of marble

And it was not the Opera del Duomo that commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt and finish the block of marble, but it was Michelangelo himself who asked to be able to work it to try to get something out of it. He was thinking of the greatest sculpture performed in the Renaissance.

In any case, Michelangelo’s sculpture was constrained by the previous “sbozzo” and he was probably not yet sure how to reuse the block, what shape and movement it could give to his work. Which, moreover, had not yet been fully defined, in fact the contract mentions a hominem, vocatur gigantem, originally a Prophet to be placed outdoors on the spurs of the Cathedral.
The marble was in the courtyard of the Opera del Duomo, and there Michelangelo was to sculpt it. He had a turata built between walls and planks (Vasari, Vite) so that no one would see him at work, or see what and how he was creating.

It took Buonarroti three years and three months to complete the work. Probably, as he often did, he divided the time between the colossal giant and other sculptures that he had agreed to execute.
At the end of January 1504 the statue, the majestic David, was finished. Giorgio Vasari wrote that “he has taken the cry out of all the modern and ancient or Greek or Latin statues that they were… and certainly whoever sees this one should not bother to see other sculptures made in our times or in others by any creator.”

David by Michelangelo, Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze

David by Michelangelo (detail), Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze

There was no more talk of hoisting it on a spur of the cathedral. However, it was necessary to decide where to place it. On 25 January 1504 a special commission was appointed, which was attended by the most famous and important artists of the city: Andrea della Robbia, Cosimo Rosselli, Francesco Granacci, Piero di Cosimo, Davide Ghirlandaio, Simione del Pollaiolo, Filippino Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Antonio and Giuliano da Sangallo, Andrea Sansovino, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo da Vinci.

Andrea della Robbia, Andrea del Sarto, Devotion of the Florentines to the relics, 1510, detail, SS. Annunziata, Cloister of the Vows

Cosimo Rosselli, Davide Ghirlandaio, 1490, Detroit Institute of Art

Piero di Cosimo, self-portrait, 1515, Liberation of Andromeda, detail, Uffizi

Filippino Lippi, Disputation of Simon Magus and Crucifixion of St. Peter, 1485, Brancacci Chapel

Sandro Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi, self-portrait, 1475, Uffizi

Giuliano da Sangallo, Piero di Cosimo, 1505, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Pietro Perugino, Self-Portrait, 1500, Collegio del Cambio, Perugia

Leonardo da Vinci, self-portrait

Lorenzo di Credi, Perugino, 1504, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Leonardo da Vinci and Giuliano da Sangallo proposed placing the monument in Piazza Signoria under the Loggia dei Lanzi, in order to protect it from bad weather, leaning against the wall “with a black niche behind it like a cappelluzza”. In fact, they had noticed that there were “imperfections in the marble” which could have created problems with the duration and static nature of the outdoor sculpture.
The Herald of the Signoria of the Republic and Michelangelo instead proposed to place it either in the courtyard of the Palazzo della Signoria, or outside to the side of the Palazzo door, in any case outdoors.
Frictions arose so much that, Luca Landucci tells us in his Diary, it was necessary to mount guard at night at the David because it was stoned by those who did not agree on its positioning.
But only the rough draft wall of the Palace could be the background of the great marble, and it was decided to place it where it is still located in copy, but to do this they were forced on June 8, 1504 to move the bronze sculpture of Donatello, cast with lost wax method, Judith killing Holofernes, which was housed in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and on 11 June the red and white marble base was commissioned from Simone del Pollaiolo and Antonio da Sangallo.
Unfortunately, in 1842, in order to be able to move the David from the Arengario on the facade of Palazzo Vecchio, it was only possible to destroy the original base, on which the inscription EXEMPLUM SALUTIS PUBLICAE CIVES POSVERE was engraved, then reconstructing the base equal to the original.

Provisional cover of David still on the base on 1504

David at the Academy on the redone base

Base of the replica of Piazza della Signoria

In July and August Michelangelo continued with the sculptural retouching of his masterpiece.
Vasari tells us the witty anecdote that took place in these two months:

“At this moment he was born when, seeing him on Pier Soderini, who pleased him very much, and while he was retouching him in certain places, he said to Michelagnolo that he thought that the nose of that figure was large. Michelagnolo realizing that the gonfalonieri was under the giant, and that his eyesight did not allow him to see the truth, to satisfy him, he climbed onto the bridge which was beside him behind him; and Michelagnolo quickly took a chisel in his left hand with a little marble dust that was on the planks of the bridge, and began to throw lightly with the chisels, he let the dust fall little by little, nor did he touch his nose which was. Then looking down at the gonfalonieri, whom he was watching, he said: Look at him now. I like it better (said the Gonfalonieri): you gave it life. Thus descended Michelagnolo, who laughed at himself, having pity on those who, for the sake of understanding each other, do not know what they are saying.”

The transport of the giant from the Opera del Duomo to the facade of Palazzo Vecchio was another “feat” of no small importance, Vasari also summarizes this for us:

“…Because Giuliano da Sangallo and his brother made a very strong wooden castle, and they suspended that figure with the ropes from it, so that when it shook it would not break off, on the contrary it would always collapse; and with the beams on the flat ground with winches they pulled it, and put it to work. He made a noose to the rope, which held the figure suspended, very easily to slide, and tightened when the weight aggravated it: which is a beautiful and ingenious thing, which I have drawn by his hand in our book, which is admirable, sure, and strong to bind weights”

We had to wait until 8 September to have the David on its base permanently placed next to the door of the Palazzo Vecchio.

Palazzo Vecchio, detail of the door with the replica of David

In 1512, the base of the David was struck by lightning, but there was no obvious damage to the place. Instead, the statue suffered major damage on 26 April 1527 during the revolt for the expulsion of the Medici from Florence: republicans barricaded themselves in Palazzo Vecchio by throwing stones, furniture and tiles from the windows which, striking the left arm of the sculpture, broke it into three pieces and the sling splintered at shoulder height. Fortunately, Vasari and Francesco Salviati secretly collected all the pieces and went to hide them in Salviati’s house.
The restoration was carried out later, under the Duke of Florence Cosimo I dei Medici.
In 1813 the middle finger of the right hand was damaged and was rebuilt in 1843 by Aristodemo Costoli who, in an attempt to clean the hand of concretions both mechanically with steel brushes and chemically with hydrochloric acid, damaged the surface. The damage was already done, but to try to protect it from the rain, the statue was temporarily covered.

David by Michelangelo, Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze

David by Michelangelo (detail), Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze

The last damage was inflicted in 1991 on the left foot by a self-styled protester: a hammer blow chipped the first three toes, then restored with the recovered fragments.

The exposure of the David to the elements for about three centuries had caused its surface to float, especially where the rain was pouring (shoulders and upper part of the hair) and opened a series of small holes in the marble, the so-called “taroli”; so it was decided to protect the work by bringing it inside the Academy gallery.
For this purpose, the architect Emilio de Fabris built a new grandstand illuminated by a skylight,

David by Michelangelo (detail), Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze

and in August 1873 the David was transported to the Accademia Gallery on a special carriage on which it was harnessed, a carriage that was made to slide on wooden rails.
It took five days to transport the nearly seven-ton statue; the torrid climate in fact allowed to work only in the coolest hours from four to eleven in the morning.

David by Michelangelo (detail), Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze

Model of the chariot for transporting the David to the Galleria dell’Accademia, Casa Buonarroti

Model of the chariot for transporting the David to the Accademia Gallery, Alinari photo

Model of the chariot for transporting the David to the Accademia Gallery, New Universal Illustration, year II no. January 6-18, 1874, p. 48


The Etruscan Chimera

The Chimera, this lion-dog with a snake’s tail and a goat’s head on its back, was formed from the transformation of fantastic animals from Syrian, Persian and Babylonian Assyrian art.

Sphinx-lion, from Karkemish (Turkey), 9th century. BC, Anadolu Medeniyetleri Muzesi, Ankara

It appeared in the Western world through Greek, Etruscan and Italic art through commercial exchange in the 8th – 7th century BC. The variant in which the goat’s head emerges from a wing is one of the oldest representations.

Bronze relief, San Marciano, 6th century. BC, Antiken Sammlung, Munich

Etruscan amphora from Vulci, 530 BC, Fitz. Museum, Cambridge

But it is at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 4th century BC. that the Chimera with the Etruscan civilization reaches the apex of its artistic representation with the bronze of Arezzo.

Archaeological Museum of Florence

Archaeological Museum of Florence

Archaeological Museum of Florence

Archaeological Museum of Florence

Archaeological Museum of Florence

There are various Greek myths relating to his birth: according to Homer it was a divine animal fed by Amisodaros king of Caria; for Hesiod it was the daughter of the Hydra of Lerna and the Nemean lion, granddaughter of Typhon and Echidna, sister of the sphinx. It symbolized chthonic power and of the underworld’s forces.

Attic black-figure amphora with Heracles slaying the Hydra, Princeton Painter, 550-525 BC.

Detail of the Attic black-figure amphora with Heracles slaying the Hydra, Princeton Painter, 550-525 BC.

Attic black-figure amphora, Boulogne Painter 520-510 BC, from Cerveteri

Detail from the Attic black-figure amphora, Boulogne Painter 520-510 BC, from Cerveteri

It was killed by the Corinthian hero Bellerophon of the lineage of Sisyphus, son of Eurynome and Glaucus and Poseidon: the myth tells that Bellerophon fled from his homeland for having involuntarily caused the death of his brother and went to Prince Preto in Argos, where, however, he refused the advances of his wife Sthenebea who took revenge by sending him to his father-in-law Lobate king of Lycia, who to expiate him invited him to perform a series of “labours” including that of killing the Chimera, helped by the winged horse Pegasus.

Peter Paul Rubens, Bellerophon, Pegasus and the Chimera, 1635, Musée Bonnat, Bayonne

In Etruscan times the Chimera with Bellerophon was positioned to protect the city gates with an apotropaic function, and the Chimera of Arezzo was found near the ancient Etruscan gate corresponding to the current Porta San Laurentino;

It is probable that some representations of angels or saints with the same function of guardians of the doors derive from the memory of the ancient mythical episode, such as San Michele or San Giorgio often depicted with wings like Pegasus, the winged horse of Bellerophon, which they are about to kill the dragon, a distant relative of the Chimera.

Botticini, on the left the Archangel Michael, ca 1471, Uffizi

Raphael, S. Michele, 1505, Louvre

Walls of Florence last circle, Porta S. Giorgio

Walls of Florence last circle, Porta S. Giorgio, detail of the bas-relief

At the beginning of the seventh century BC. C. the Chimera was still implemented in a purely decorative way, and at the end of the sixth century BC. its image began to appear on coins, gems, beetles, antefixes,

Silver stater, Sicyon, 4th century. B.C.

Corinth 430-405 BC

Intaglio onyx with a blue layer on a black background, 1st cent. B.C.

Clay antefix from Thasos, 550 BC, Mus. National, Athens

on ceramics,

Corinthian aryballos from Camirtos, Painter of heraldic lions, last quarter of the 3rd century. B.C., Victoria and Albert Mus., London

Laconic kylix, Painter of the Chimera, Third quarter of the 6th century. BC, Heidelberg, Mus. of the University

Apulian red-figure plate 350 BC

In the 5th century BC. there was the return and diffusion of the myth of it with Bellerophon on Pegasus who kills it which continued even in Roman times appearing on ceramics, mosaics, frescoes, gems and coins.

Laconian black-figure kylix Boread Painter Getty Villa, Malibu 570-565 BC

Attic red-figure pottery 420 BC

Apulian dish

Attic red-figure askos. Last quarter of the 5th century BC, Louvre, seen from above

Attic red-figure askos. Last quarter of the 5th century BC

Attic red-figure askos. Last quarter of the 5th century BC

Mosaic, Rhodes, 300-270 BC.

La-Chimera-Roman-mosaic-Musee Rolin Burgundy France

Roman fresco with Cupid, Pegasus, Chimera, I-II century. AD, Cologne, Museum

Intaglio onyx with a blue layer on a black background, 3rd century. AC

Etruscan scarab ring, ca. 400 BC Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University

Didrachmus of the Fenserni (Campania) 390 BC, Berlin

Corinth, bronze, Augustan age

The Chimera of Arezzo is male (although in ancient times the Chimera also appeared in female forms) and is represented wounded by enemy blows on the left thigh and on the neck of the goat’s head hanging on the left side now dying .

Lanceolate socket on left hip

Lanceolate cavity on the neck of the goat’s head

The animal’s body has been modeled with plastic naturalism, while the head still has a strong archaic flavor as a sculptural work of transition between two artistic styles.

Archaeological Museum of Florence

Archaeological Museum of Florence

Archaeological Museum of Florence

Particularly convincing on the archaic nature of the head is the comparison with the clay drip from Metapontum dating back to the mid-5th century BC. and the red-figured Attic Rhyton of Ruvo from the end of the 5th century. B.C.

Clay drip from Metapontum

Chimera of Arezzo, detail

Attic rhyton with red figures, Ruvo, end of the 5th century. B.C.

Detail of the Etruscan Chimera

Other stylistic affinities can be found in the comparison with the funerary statue from Marciano in the Antikensamlung in Berlin and with the support paw in the Archaeological Museum in Florence.

Cinerary statue from Marciano, Antikensammlung, Berlin

Bronze support with feral paw, Mus. Archaeological, Florence

The study of the Etruscan writing on the left leg tinscvil, engraved on the wax before casting, confirms the dating of the Chimera of Arezzo at the end of the 5th – beginning of the 4th century. B.C.

Chimera, detail

The myth of its killing foresees that the Chimera and the other two figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus are united in a single sculptural group, as often happens. But the Chimera, like other monstrous figures, is also represented by itself, i.e. she takes on an autonomous life as precisely in coins, ceramics, etc.
The Chimera of Arezzo may have been removed from a bronze group with Bellerophon riding Pegasus. However, the Etruscan dedication written on the left leg of the animal engraved on the wax before casting could also suggest a single casting. The bronze would then be buried together with other small bronzes in a votive deposit.

The sculpture is about 80 cm high and about 130 long including the tail, which however is not in its original position due to the eighteenth-century restoration.

Cosimo I dei Medici Duke of Tuscany ordered that both the Chimera and the other finds excavated in Arezzo be brought to him, and exhibited the large bronze in the rooms of Pope Medici Leo X in Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of all the fairs he won in the creation of the Kingdom of Etruria. Subsequently it was taken to the “midday corridor” of the Uffizi. Today it is in the Archaeological Museum of Florence.
The restoration was done by Cellini; the legs on the left side, found detached from the body just above the joint, were roughly reattached with lead casting.

Left front paw outside

Inner side left front paw

Left hind leg outer side

Left hind leg inside

In 1785 the sculptor Carradori recreated the tail of the animal (still not remade in the drawing of Verkruys Drawing of 1724 reproduced by Th. Dempster in 1720-1726)

Verkruys drawing from 1724 reproduced by Th. Dempster, De Etruria regali libri septem, Florence, 1723–1724

not respecting the original trend, only the part closest to the body of the Chimera is a fragment of the original tail and the position of the snake biting the horn of the goat’s head was created to give it a foothold thanks to which to support its weight .

Junction between the original section of the tail with the part rebuilt in the 18th century

In 1933, in front of the Arezzo railway station, two fountains were placed with a replica of the Etruscan Chimera cast by the Aglietti foundry in the center of each one. During the Second World War they were removed and the metal melted down for military purposes.

After the war, the Municipality of Arezzo asked the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry of Florence to cast two replicas which were repositioned in place of the lost ones.

Fountain with the twentieth century copy of the Chimera on the right side of the gardens of the Arezzo station

Fountain with the twentieth century copy of the Chimera on the right side of the gardens of the Arezzo station

The twentieth-century copy of the Chimera on the right side of the gardens of the Arezzo station

Several times this magnificent bronze conserved in the Archaeological Museum of Florence has been requested to be exhibited both in exhibitions and museums in various parts of the world have set up. And a serious problem arose: if the original is lost during transport by ship or by plane, how can it be done? Losing such a masterpiece would be a tragedy and a crime. The project of the “identicals” was therefore born by the Archaeological Superintendence, that is, the creation of absolutely identical replicas of these bronzes, to be sent to the various exhibitions and keep the original in the Museum.
The management of the Archaeological Museum of Florence therefore contacted the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry through the Bazzanti Gallery, to begin studying the possibility of performing a negative cast not only on the Etruscan Chimera, but also on two other Etruscan bronzes in the Museum: the Etruscan Minerva , and the Idolino, to then cast the identical ones in lost-wax bronze. Having ascertained the capacity and working quality of the foundry, he proceeded to give it the assignment.
Our technicians have reached the laboratories of the Archaeological Superintendency and have begun to execute, with extreme care, the mold of the Chimera in silicone rubber and mother mold in plaster.

Realization of the mould on the original Chimera

Realization of the mould on the original Chimera

From the mould, carefully transported to the foundry, the waxes to which the castings were applied were made and retouched, the casting performed and processed, the parts assembled and welded.

Mother mold in silicone rubber

Snake wax retouch

Retouched head wax

Application of castings to the head wax

The wrought bronze is reassembled

The “identical” of the Chimera was exhibited at the Florentine Archaeological Museum, and was then sent to various exhibitions such as the 2014 “Etruscan Seduction. From the secrets of Holkham Hall to the wonders of the British Museum” at Palazzo Casali in Cortona.
It is currently located at the entrance to the Archaeological Museum of Florence.

Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. presents the “Identico” at the Archaeological Museum of Florence


The Putti in the art after Donatello

The Putti in the friezes

Donatello used friezes with cherubs in many of his works, such as for example in the two bronze pulpits in San Lorenzo in Florence, in the choir loft of the Florence Cathedral, in the pulpit of the Prato Cathedral. And he influenced various other sculptors in this sense. But in some artists such as Filippino Lippi, Ghirlandaio, Raffaello, Guadenzio Ferrari and others we can also perceive the influence that the discovery of the classic Roman frieze had in 1480 in Nero’s Domus Aurea in Rome.
Andrea di Lazzaro Cavalcanti known as il Buggiano, adopted by Brunelleschi when he was five years old, frequently puts putti in his works. But these look different from Donatello’s, they are swollen and with square faces, small noses with small nostrils, and with mysterious and slightly evil smiles showing their teeth, probably derived from those in Donatello’s choir loft. His washbasin in the Sacresty of the Masses of the Florence Cathedral is a classic-style aedicule with two large seated cherubs inside with enormous wings that seem to hold the spouts from which the water comes out.

The tomb of Giovanni de’ Medici and Piccarda Bueri from 1433 in the old sacristy of San Lorenzo consists of a sarcophagus with seated winged cherubs holding scrolls and flying winged cherubs holding crowns and the Medici coat of arms, more similar to those of Donatello.

Maso di Bartolomeo decorates the bronze gate cast in 1447 with lost wax of the Cappella della Cintola of the Cathedral of Prato with putti. One of these is blindfolded and has a bow and quiver like Eros but also has winged shoes like Donatello’s Attis. His anatomy is of Donatellian derivation, even if the muscular masses make him more like a little David than a putto. Thus he also brought the putti who are outside in the pulpit inside the cathedral.
In 1446 he also made the famous bronze casket of the Sacred Girdle of Prato, in which he repeats in ivory some Donatellian cherubs of the type and in dancing poses of those in the Pulpit, and the casket in pastiglia with the Orsini coat of arms with little cherubs playing musicians.

Influence of Donatello in painting

Filippo Lippi was obviously influenced by Donatello in the use of putti in his painting, since they both lived and worked in Florence. In the Madonna and Child in the Fitzwilliam Museum painted after 1430, the angels become very young winged cherubs,

equally in the Barbadori Altarpiece of 1438 and in the Madonna with Child, Saints and Angels of the Cini Collection of 1431 the typology of Lippi’s putti is confirmed and strengthened which, especially in the faces, will be one of his characteristics,

a feature that also denotes the typology of his Infant Jesuses, as in the Tarquinia Madonna of 1437 (Palazzo Barberini in Rome).

Andrea del Castagno paints in the frescoes of Villa Carducci of 1451,  above, some dancing putti similar in poses and style to those of the Pulpit in Prato.

Domenico Ghirlandaio is also influenced by Donatello in the theory of putti placed in the frieze of the fresco of the Birth of the Virgin in Santa Maria Novella in Florence of 1490, which overlap in the dance like those of Donatelli in the Cantoria.

Influenza di Donatello nel Nord Italia

Theories of dancing cherubs were sculpted as decorations by Bartolomeo Bellano in the Monument to Roccabonella in S. Francesco in Padua, from 1494, based on the throne of the Bellano Virgin directly inspired by Donatello’s Cantoria of the Florence Cathedral;
Niccolò Pizzolo, also from Padua, in the altarpiece of the Ovetari Chapel in the church of the Eremitani in Padua, has executed a frieze of putti running and playing with circles and crowns at the top, which derive from those of Donatello’s Cantoria;
Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, of Padua, worked in Bergamo at the Colleoni Chapel until 1476, where he executed the bas-relief sculptures on Istrian stone of rough putti crushing grapes, some copied even in pose from those of Donatello’s Pulpit of Prato, and other very chubby and fat cherubs in the lower frieze of the Colleoni Funeral Monument.
Throughout the cloister of the Certosa di Pavia, decorations with putti of the Donatellian type abound, most of which were sculpted by Amadeo around 1470.
In 1433 Donatello went to Padua to work on the altar of the Basilica of S. Antonio, whose sculptures, including those of his putti, influenced the painters of the north, especially Mantegna. Many of Mantegna’s paintings, including the frescoes for the ceiling and walls of the Camera degli Sposi in Mantua, derive from those by Donatello.

Donatello, in the bronze bas-relief of the Pietà in Padua for the first time, has putti support the body of Christ; the first to emulate him is Giovanni Bellini who copies this style in the Pietà at the Museo Correre in Venice (1460).

And he repeats this theme several times: in Christ in the Rimini Museum, from 1470, where the four putti-angels have butterfly wings and wear short tunics, as well as those in Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi in Mantua,

in the Pietà of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, where the angel-putti begin to grow in age,

Antonello da Messina, who went to Venice in 1475, was inspired by Bellini to paint the dead Christ supported by three putti-angels (Museo Correre Venezia), and two years later another in which Christ seated is supported by a single putto-angel . (Prado Museum, Madrid)


The vaccine by Edward Jenner and the sculpture by Giulio Monteverde

Part II

The sculptor Giulio Monteverde creates a small great masterpiece with this model:
Jenner’s celebratory statue is very complex and represents the character who is inoculating the child with the vaccine. The light glides over the child’s naked body without creating intense chiaroscuro. Instead the doctor’s clothes and the drapery at the bottom of the sheet that falls to the ground are more evident and graphic. Furthermore, his hands are clearly highlighted by the contrast between light and shadow.
In the statue of Jenner who inoculates the child with the smallpox vaccine, Monteverde manages to make the emotions at stake appear immediately clear and transmits them to the viewer:
the child is naked, his skin is smooth, without wrinkles, and allows the light to slip through without creating strong chiaroscuro, which, together with his being at the center of the sculpture, is the focal point of the work.
Jenner, on the other hand, with the dress and with the fabric that descends from the cushion to the ground, has strong chiaroscuro, which highlights its tension, and which, although it is the largest figure, places the figure in the background.
The doctor’s attitude is concentrated and decisive, he is certain of his new theory, but he must overcome the fear of the doctors and the population; the child perceives his fear and is fearful in turn, even if he cannot fight back.
Monteverde wanted to express the courage, determination, and heroic nature of the gesture, if the child is actually his son as legend has it, and the certainty of his science, which in an instant surpasses the clichés of the people and other doctors.

The sculpture was commissioned, after the sculptor had sent it to the Universal Exhibition in Vienna in 1873, where it won the gold medal, by the Duchess of Galliera Maria Brignole Sale de Ferrari, a great philanthropist for the city of Genoa .

Upon her death, the Duchess bequeathed the work by testamentary bequest and since 1884 it has been in the collections of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Genoa.
As has been described, the Monteverde sculpture is three-dimensionally complex, with many undercuts that would have made the bronze casting extremely challenging. It was therefore necessary to dissect the model into many parts, studied in such a way as to guarantee the perfect result of these in the lost wax casting in bronze.

We continued with the execution of the negative casts in silicone resin and plaster mother mold of each sectioned part of the model, using a special type of liquid silicone that guaranteed the “reading” of every detail of the sculpture and its surface.
From these we obtained the hollow waxes of the thickness that would have been necessary to have in bronze.

Once the waxes have been extracted from the negative forms,

have moved on to the delicate stage of retouching.

It was necessary to reassemble all the wax parts to find the whole model, checking that they all matched perfectly, and the wax parts retouched,

After other passages and firings they were cast in bronze, obtaining the raw castings identical to the waxes themselves

One of the two bronze sculptures is patinated.

The finished sculpture, waiting to be shipped to the customer.

The sculpture is then installed on the marble base, created by Studio Bazzanti, at the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute in Los Angeles.

Le miniature

The client asked us to create a small model of the sculpture. Our sculptor Eleonora Villani get down to work and after a long time she obtained a perfect reduction of Monteverdi’s “Jenner”.
This model has also been dissected into several parts,

From which the negative silicone and plaster mother molds were made,

From which all the small parts in hollow wax were obtained.

The tiny wax parts were reassembled to obtain a complete wax replica, on which a negative mould of the complete model was made, from which the bronze casting was obtained, which, cleaned and chiseled with particular care, became the model for the subsequent 100 replicas.

The number of replicas is limited, and each specimen is numbered in cents, and is stamped with the logo of the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry and of the company that ordered the replicas (EITM).

The marble bases are made, then the sculptures are patinated and the Carrara marble base is applied.


The Holy Door

Part II

The rite of tearing down the wall was repeated until the opening of the Holy Door on December 24, 1974 by Paul VI. Until that day, the Holy Door in the basilica atrium was closed off by a white wall decorated with a gilded metal cross, with a leaden plaque underneath, a wall raised at the closure of the Holy Door itself at the end of the Jubilee Year of Pius XII in 1950.

Paul VI at the end of the Holy Year of 1975 introduced a ritual change for the closing of the Door: in 1949 the one cast in bronze was applied to the inner part of the Holy Door, used for the night closing of the gate passage after the collapse of the Door masonry. The bronze doors were moved to the front of the opening, and since then the wall has been demolished a few days before the opening of the door from the inside and rebuilt at the end of the Jubilee.
And the opening and closing ceremony has undergone a profound change: from 1975 the pope opens the Holy Door only by pushing and throwing open the two bronze doors (the wall was demolished by the masons a few days earlier); and the closing of the Holy Door takes place in reverse, the pope locks the two bronze doors (and the wall will be rebuilt a few days later).
So since 1950 the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica has been closed from the outside by the bronze door, and no longer by the simple wall.
And these doors have become a reminder of the spirituality of the Holy Years, of indulgence, mercy and forgiveness.

THE HOLY DOOR BY VICO CONSORTI

The idea of renovating the gates dates back to the pontificate of Benedict XIV in the 18th century. But of the project only wooden models remain at the factory of San Pietro.

Prince George of Bavaria, born in Munich in 1880 from the royal family of Wittelsbach, was Vatican Canon in 1926. Upon his death in 1943, he destined his private estate to make the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in bronze. He also left written the rules for the establishment of a commission to preside over the work, which was to have the Archpriest of the Basilica at its head, the Treasurer and Secretary of the Reverend Fabbrica di San Pietro as secretary, and his brother the Prince of Bavaria as collaborators , two representatives of the canons of the Basilica elected by the Chapter, the Director of the Pontifical Museums and Galleries and finally the Ambassador of Germani to the Holy See. The Commission had to announce an international competition and decide the winner.

After the war, in 1947 the Commission was formed by Cardinal Federico Tedeschini, Mons. Ludovico Kaas, Mons. Carlo Grosso and Mons. Vincenzo Bianchi Cagliesi, prof. Bartolomeo Nogara, Prof. Piero Canonica, Prof. Arnaldo Foschini, Archbishop Arthur Wynen. Count Eng. Enrico Pietro Galeazzi, Eng. Francesco Vacchini.
The announcement was published in July 1947 with the obligation to present the drawing of a door at 1:10 scale, the plaster sketch of a panel at 1:4 scale and a detail of the true plaster panel.
More than 80 projects arrived from all over the world. Only 12 were awarded, including Dazzi, Manzù, Morbiducci, Consorti, Cambellotti, etc., i.e. those who had kept to a classic scheme.
While they were discussing who to give the job to, Mons. Ludovico Kaas decided to have a smaller door built, not foreseen in the competition, that is the Holy Door, which was to replace the one of 1750. The cost of the new Holy Door was supported by the bishop of Basel and Lugano Mons. Franziskus von Streng, in thanks to the Swiss people for having been spared from the horrors of war. Mons. Kaas directly entrusted the execution of the work to the Sienese sculptor Vico Consorti, already registered in the competition for the other doors for the Vatican Basilica.

Consorti had already created for Count Guido Chigi Saracini, as a thank you for the liberation of the city of Siena from the Germans, the Door of Gratitude for the Cathedral of Siena, inaugurated on August 16, 1946. This door has classical references, with a search for Renaissance forms , and favorably impressed Archbishop Kaas. The contract was signed on March 1, 1949, and Consorti chose the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry in Florence for casting and mechanical construction.
In the photo from left: Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., Vico Consorti, Count Chigi Saracini.

The Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry had already made itself known for its ability to cast other doors for the Church with lost wax, such as the one sculpted by Ludovico Pogliaghi for the Roman church of Santa Maria Maggiore and completed in 1947.

Casting the Holy Door made the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry known throughout the Christian world, so much so that the castings and creations of other doors were assigned to it, such as the one commissioned by Cardinal Chrisanto Loque in 1956 for the Archbishop’s Palace in Bogotà (Colombia), who also turned to the sculptor Vico Consorti; and the doors for the Cathedral of Oropa (Biella) modeled by Vatteroni, Consorti and Audagna in 1960, whose total weight exceeded 11 tons; that of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Sasssari modeled by Mario Moschi and cast in 1969; and the Porta by Onofrio Pepe for the park of the new Court of Florence, carried out in 2005.

Consorti drew up a first sketch in January 1949 (the construction time for the Gate was very tight) which he had Marinelli cast in bronze. In the sketch there were panels with scenes taken from the Gospel and with two moments relating to the Holy Year: Boniface VIII delivering the bull of the first Jubilee against the background of the ancient Constantinian basilica, and the new Basilica with characters around the cross to indicate the last jubilee proclaimed.

In the month of June 8 panels were modeled in clay, and already cast by the Marinelli Foundry, the panels of the Buon Ladrone modeled between January and February 1949 and the four of the upper register cast in record time and never retouched by the Consorti.
On 31 August Consorti went to Rome in his Topolino Fiat to show the cast panels to Mons. Kaas.
The entire door arrived in St. Peter’s on 18 December while preparations were underway for the ceremony of the Holy Year, and the two doors were temporarily placed on the left side of the Chapel of the SS. Sacrament. After the Pope crossed the threshold of the Holy Door followed by the cardinals and prelates, the Holy Father proceeded to bless the two doors of Vico Consorti who was present on his knees and in the throes of emotion. He still didn’t know that from that day on he would be called “Vico dell’Uscio” for the rest of his life.
On 28 December the two doors were hinged into place

and subsequently in 1974 they led to a change in the ceremonial: no longer the breaking of the wall at the hands of the Pope, but the opening of the bronze doors and the subsequent closure at the end of the Jubilee. In fact in that year, when on Christmas day Pope Pius VI gave the three symbolic (but effective) hammer blows on the lime and brick wall, part of these fell on him.
With the Jubilee of Pope Pius XII in 1950 there was thus the opening of the bronze doors and his entry into St. Peter’s and likewise their subsequent closure

rite that was repeated in the special Jubilee of the end of the millennium of 2000 with the opening of Pope Francis

and subsequent closure

THE LOST WAX CASTING

The Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry was placed under pressure: a work of this magnitude had to be carried out and delivered from January to December 1949, i.e. in less than a year with the further difficulty that the models of the tiles and frames were not brought to the foundry all together, but little by little over time, that is as Consorti completed them. The “miracle” succeeded and the bronze Holy Door arrived at the Vatican on December 18, 1949, six days before the opening for the Jubilee!
In those early post-war years, the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry worked with craft techniques very similar to those of the Renaissance: there were no lifting machines such as cranes or forklifts, everything was done by hand, there was only electricity that gave light and allowed the use of drills and electric motor discs as seen in the photo.

The long cooking of the MOULDS to burn the wax, in brick and mud stoves built on top of each form and fed day and night with bundles of wood, and then the ritual of casting the molten bronze in a primitive oven powered by charcoal and oxygenated with a fan, the crucible with about 200 kg of molten bronze lifted and moved by hand, with such precision as to pour the liquid metal precisely into the buried forms up to the apex. Then the breaking of the forms, the cleaning of the raw castings obtained, the cleaning and chiselling of the bronzes, then the assembly, the welding with an oxy-acetylene flame, the processing of the welds, and finally the patina and the gilding.
When the work was finished, the meticulous control of Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., grandfather of Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. who has been managing the Foundry since 1976.