The Pietro Bazzanti Gallery in Florence was purchased by the Marinelli family in 1960, family that owns the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry in Florence. And it is thanks to the “two Ferdinands”, as it is narrated below, that the Foundry and the Gallery met and joined.
Ferdinando Marinelli Senior went down, at the beginning of the 20th century, from Umbria to Florence when he was a young boy, to learn about the art of lost wax-casting that he then learned in foundries which, starting with Giambologna, went from father to son.

In 1919 he took over the Gabellini foundry of Rifredi (Florence), transforming it into the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry

He married Delia Gelli from whom he had two sons, the eldest of whom, Marino,

will continue with his brother Aldo the melting activity. Marino married Renee Naylor, and in 1949, shortly after Ferdinando Marinelli Sr. together with his wife Delia were at the thermal Baths of Montecatini,

Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. was born.

In 1976 Marino died, and the Foundry passed to Ferdinando Jr.

The Foundry was run by Ferdinando Sr. in a patriarchal manner, almost a large family and hovered in an atmosphere of a Renaissance workshop.

Ferdinando Jr. very often visited the foundry, enchanted by the work of the artisans, and as every child is able to do, he learned on the fly without realizing those ancient techniques. And the materials were beautiful and strange and with mysterious names, the plaster, the cat powder (ground alum), the soap mixed with oil, the red wax, the “loto” (fireclay), the sulfur liver, the lacquer of the Angels.

To create negative molds was used a strange gum that became semi-pasty in a bain-marie and that smelled tremendously, obtained by mixing the rabbit bone jelly with glycerin: the silicone resins were invented twenty years later. The wax that was brushed inside these negative mold was wax of bees (the paraffin suitable for this type of work did not exist yet), and sent a very good sweet smell.

Ferdinando Jr. had some difficulty in understanding that strange three-dimensional network of wax sticks with which the wax sculptures were imprisoned,

and why they were locked up in that refractory material they called “loto”, that means mud

and then left to cook for a long time day and night in those strange stoves which were built with bricks and clay directly above the lotus forms.

The bronze melting and casting was an almost sacred act, it was difficult for him to assist, and when it happened he had to stay still and good on one side, otherwise they would have given him a kick in his ass. The oven was a hole in the ground filled with coal with a fan that blew continuously, into which the crucible filled with bronze ingots was inserted. It took a few hours for the metal to melt. The casting was performed by hand, raising the crucible with inside more than 200 kg. of metal at about 1000 centigrades pouring it with precision inside the forms. Ferdinando Jr, had to stay at a distance because if one of the four workers holding the crucible had slipped, the mass of melted and incandescent metal would have splashed everywhere.

The molds of “loto” with the bronze statues just poured inside were split by hammer to extract the castings.

And then there were the bronze workers, some with green hair due to the copper contained in the bronze, each one was a character, jealous of their chisel engravers.

When the welders lit up the cigarettes held between their lips with the oxyacetylene flame to weld, Ferdinando Jr. ran away, convinced that they would have volatilized also their nose.

In 1976, when his father Marino died, Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. also became the owner of Galleria Bazzanti, which, in addition to sculpting his famous marbles in his studios in Carrara and Pietrasanta, sold bronze sculptures cast in the Foundry, in particular the replicas of the Ancient and Renaissance classics, of which he possesses the negative molds executed in the past on the originals by Ferdinando Marinelli Sr.

The priority has been given to the elimination of the reinforced concrete poured inside the fountain when it was placed at the end of the 1950s on the travertine base.
The Maltese technicians thought in this way to “strength” the brass sculptures and to find a clever way for blocking them on the base.
Instead the internal cement has helped to “cook” the metal and to create a dense network of cracks.

After the collapse of the fountain in the 70’s due to improper use of the overhanging brass basin, summary repairs were carried out to restore the fountain itself as best they could.
On this occasion the folds, indentations and other damages at the external surface, due to the trauma, were filled with epoxy material. The second restoration work was to eliminate these fillings to see the real state of the sculptures.

The expansion of the cement and its emission of chemical liquids has made the brass alloy very fragile, crushing it at various points. Furthermore, the lost-wax casting technique was badly respected by creating areas very thin.

The work continued with the cleaning of the surfaces through micro sandblasting, also allowing the elimination of the outbreaks of oxidation and sulphation and of the calcareous infiltrations due to the cement and the water of the fountain.

The Neapolitan foundry left on the sculptures the totality of the “spacing nails” necessary for the lost wax casting, some in iron and others in copper. Their chemical reaction (oxidation and sulphation) caused damage to the surface of the sculptures.
It was necessary to eliminate these nails and widen the holes left by their extraction to completely eliminate the chemical reaction outbreaks.

From here began the work of consolidation of the many parts deteriorated, weakened, broken in several pieces, and of the many cracks born in the sculptures, through external and internal weldings of the sculptures, complex and delicate work caused by the bad state of the metal.

A particularly difficult and delicate job was that of restoring the original shape to the basin, shape that it had lost both due to the breaking and folding suffered in the collapse of 1978, and to the bad repairs it had subsequently. A series of steel templates have been built with different degrees of curvature that have been used to recreate the exact original curvature of the basin. This has been cut in many points, brought back into shape and re-welded.
It’ been important to recreate the perfect coplanarity of the entire basin to allow, once reassembled on the fountain, the right and equal fall from the edges of the water.

Visits by the Maltese authorities ended with friendly lunches.

When all the parts have been consolidated and reinforced, the reassembly of the sculptures begun.

An internal stainless steel skeleton was inserted inside the tritons to unload the weight on the base of the fountain, so as not to burden on the sculptures. The skeleton was designed so as to allow the passage of the fountain’s water and electric lighting cables inside it.

and a stainless steel radial frame has been designed and built to consolidate and not burden on the brass basin with the weight of the water.

Only at this point it’s been possible to reconstruct the original position and wiring of the tritons and the basin, and to prepare a series of steel templates necessary to reassemble the entire fountain in Malta.

We proceeded giving patina to the sculptures,

then with the packing,

then with the transport to Malta.

The technicians of the Marinelli Foundry applied the stainless steel brackets for the reassembly of the fountain on its original concrete base, assembly carried out thanks to the 3D virtual models prepared previously.

The fountain of the Tritons is considered by the Maltese as the symbol of the City of Valletta and of the entire island.

It was modeled in the 50’s by the Maltese sculptor Vincent Apap, and the hydraulic system was designed by his aide Victor Anastasi.

The lost wax casting of the Tritons and the upper basin was entrusted to the Laganà foundry of Naples, which completed the assembling on the Travertino’s base in 1959.

A wooden base was then installed on the basin to turn it into a stage on which to host shows, including, in 1978, a motorbike race that caused the breaking and semi-collapse of the basin and of the Tritons.

The fountain remained broken and inoperative until 1986, the year in which attempts were made to remedy the severe damage by applying a central pillar under the basin, modeled by the sculptor Vincent Apap himself and cast with lost wax method. An attempt was made also to straighten the basin again and to re-weld the broken arms of the Tritons in the wrong positions.

To try to bring the basin back to the level, cement pads were applied between the hands of the Tritons and the basin.

The intervention was carried out by the Malta DryDocks mechanical-naval workshops, but the functioning of the fountain remained compromised.

As part of the urban redevelopment of the entire “Triton Square”, the Government of Malta has requested a study on the possibility of a complete restoration of the fountain located in the center of the square.

For the restoration of bronze sculptures, the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli of Florence was called, and in August and September 2016 various meetings were held with technicians and representatives of the Maltese Government,

and some technical investigations to detect the damage that the fountain suffered in 1978, with subsequent approximate repairs. The alloy with which they were cast is not bronze, as expected, but brass, a cheaper and more perishable metal than bronze.

The possibility of dismantling and transporting the fountain sculptures to the Fonderia Ferdinando Marinelli in Italy was confirmed, for the restoration and repair of damage suffered in the past. The foundry technicians in collaboration with the Maltese Company Swaey Bros Ltd proceeded with the dismantling and to the subsequent expedition of the bronzes to the Foundry. The lower part of each triton was filled in with a cast of cement that blocked the sculptures on the concrete base. Each triton had to be cut into two parts and the lower part freed from the reinforced-concrete floor.
We dismantled first the basin

and then the central supporting trunk.

We proceeded with the cutting in half of each triton

And the subsequent job of detachment from the base of cement base that had to continue without interruption even at night to limit the closure to the traffic of the square.

The dismantled bronzes were transported by sea and by land to the Marinelli Foundry in Barberino val d’Elsa, where they were unloaded.

Chemical investigations of the oxidation and sulphation products of the brass alloy have begun to understand what type of intervention was necessary to block these processes.

Our treasure, in addition to the artistic work capacity of our artisans, is that of the Ferdinando Marinelli Gipsoteca, preserved in sheds to this reserved.

Ferdinando Marinelli Senior, that started the Artistic Foundry in 1905, performed the negative molds on the original classical masterpieces Greeks, Etruscans, Romans and of Renaissance.
In the first decades of the ‘900 Ferdinando Marinelli Senior had the permission from the various authorities to perform the moulds of such sculptures directly on the originals present in the museums, in some churches and in the Italian squares.
In those years it was still possible, for accredited people for the ability to perform moulds without damaging masterpieces, to obtain authorization.

The collection of original moulds continued to be enriched with the current owner Ferdinando Marinelli Junior: often Museums and authorities require the Foundry to make moulds on masterpieces to be kept indoors and to replace them with replicas made by the Foundry, granting the use of such moulds. The ability to work, the care and the attention to the masterpieces on which to perform the moulds is fully recognized to the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry by all the authorities and directions of Italian and foreign museums.

When the Italian Government in 1930 decided to donate a bronze replica of Michelangelo’s David to the city of Montevideo, Uruguay, it authorized Ferdinando Marinelli Senior to mould the original preserved in the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.

The Louvre Museum went as far as Florence to have the bronze replica of the Bust of Louis XVI (Versailles, Paris), made by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1665 during his stay in Paris. The sketch was taken to the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry in Florence to make the mold on it for a bronze replica destined to Benito Mussolini’s private collection.

It is thanks to these original moulds that the Fonderia Ferdinando Marinelli can carry out its renowned bronze replicas, and sculpt marble replicas in their studio.

In 1933 Stalin transformed two wonderful halls of the Kremlin festivals, the halls of Sant’Andrea and Sant’Alessandro, in a large room for the meetings of the CPSU, destroying the original furnishings and the sumptuous decorations. When we were called in 1998 for their complete restoration we found two half-empty halls with exposed brick walls, and the rough concrete floor. It was necessary to bring them back to their former glory, and in a short time.

The contract was won by a group of Florentine artisans led by Sauro Martini and Fiorenza Bartolozzi, including, for bronze castings and lighting fixtures, the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli; and for the marble works the Galleria Bazzanti.
We had to create, from approximate drawings, all the models of the sculptures, the giant chandeliers and appliques, and a marble fireplace, and then make them in bronze and marble. It was a complex but fascinating adventure, which put a strain on all the Florentine artisans who contributed to the splendid restoration.

The work went on among many difficulties, the drawings provided by the Russian military were approximate, some even unattainable, and the commissions that visited Italy were always different each with their own ideas and requests. What had to be a restoration turned out to be a real reconstruction from scratch.
Among the many models that have ordered us we remember the Bicept Eagle and the Saint Andrew’s Cross, which have replaced the bas-reliefs with scythe and hammer. The gilded bronze bases of the gigantic pillars were also made.

The huge chandeliers that we had to create from the drawings were in three overlapping circles with hundreds of lights and decorations,

the wall appliques are also gigantic,

the fireplace particularly elaborate.

The assembly was long but the result was magnificent.

The desire to decorate one’s home with replicas of masterpieces from the past is a fashion that has existed since the Roman era. The Romans in fact loved to make copies of Greek sculptures, often “reversing” the materials: often marble statues were reproduced in bronze, and vice versa. A good part of the Greek sculptures are known to us thanks to the replicas of ancient Rome.
A particular example is the one of the colossal Farnese Hercules sculpted in bronze by the Greek artist Lysippus in the 4th century. A.C., and replicated in marble in the first century B.C. probably from a Roman workshop that signed it with the name of the Greek Glicone falsifying its attribution.

We know that in Rome there were shops and art galleries with such copies for sale; in the second half of the nineteenth century the Dutch painter Alma Tadema imagined just two of these galleries of ancient Rome.

The fashion to perform replicas of ancient masterpieces has continued over the centuries, until today. There are many examples, starting with the “Porcellino” of Florence, the bronze fountain of the boar: in the 1500s the Medici family ordered to make a negative mold on the original ancient Greek marble and to reproduce it in bronze (See also The Porcellino of Florence). Other examples are the Diana Huntress of the Louvre Museum, a Roman copy of an original Greek bronze, attributed to the sculptor Leocare (325 BC.) that has been lost. A negative mold was made and from which in 605 a bronze replica was cast for a fountain of the palace of Fontainbleau;

bronze replica of the Bazzanti Gallery from an original mold;

the Apollo Belvedere of the Vatican Museums, also this is a Roman copy of marble from the 2nd century B.C. of the Greek bronze of Leocares of 350 BC, of wich Francsco Primaticcio perfomed the negative mold and cast in bronze in 1541 for the Castle of Fontainebleu, bronze replica of the Bazzanti Gallery from an original mold;

the group of Wrestlers, also a Roman marble copy of the first century B.C. of the lost Greek original of bronze of the III sec. a.C., probably of Lysippus,

bronze replica of the Bazzanti Gallery from an original mold;

the Mars Ludovisi of the Borghese Gallery, Roman copy of an original Greek sculpture of 320 BC attributed to Scopa or Lisippo. The negative mold was ordered to Velasquez to make a bronze copy requested in 1650 by Philip IV, king of Spain,

bronze replica of the Bazzanti Gallery from an original mold;

It is interesting to see how even Michelangelo was “replicated” a few years after his death: in 1570 Egnazio Danti, famous mathematician and cartographer, obtained the authorization from the Grand Duke Cosimo I of the Medici Family to make the negative mold of the 4 marble figures sculpted by Michelangelo for the Medici tombs: Sunrise, Sunset, Day and Night. In 1573, six years after Michelangelo’s death, the negative mold was executed by his brother Vincenzo Danti, who had been in Rome to study the works of the great Master. And he made the negative molds not on the marble statues, but on the original clay models that Michelangelo had created as a model to sculpt the four marbles, which evidently had not been destroyed. These casts were then taken the year after to the Academy of Perugia.

In the Bazzanti Gallery there are the bronze castings of the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry taken from the original moulds by Vincenzo Danti

In the second half of the nineteenth century the painters of the style characterized by the reconstruction of life scenes from Greece and ancient Rome, contributed to revive the fashion of classical furnishings already present in the Renaissance.

In 2013 the Artistic Foundry Ferdinando Marinelli, together with the Bazzanti Art Gallery and the friend Federico Frediani, organized e a bronze sculpture exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles together.

On that occasion he was invited to spend two days in the villa of friends of Federico in Malibu. And there, at lunch, after Ferdinando had cooked a “risotto”, he met Dr. Liviu Eftime and his wife Adina. Two art lovers, like all the friends in the company. Dr. Liviu is also an exceptional painter, his wife is a writer. A pleasant friendship is born. Liviu mentions a new villa for which he would like to sculpt and cast bronze doors.

At the end of 2017 a series of phone calls between Los Angeles and Florence: Liviu has been creating the models of his door in clay, asking us how to execute the negative molds and how to send them to the Foundry in Barberino val d’Elsa (Florence). In March 2018 he sent photos of his work

In April 2018 the negative molds arrive in the Foundry. A few days later Liviu arrives in the Foundry too and our friend Federico Frediani comes to visit us. We go immediately to have lunch together in the country.

During his visits in Tuscany Liviu closely follows the work of the Foundry, retouching the waxes; he argues that the work of art is never finished, and in every processing phase he wants to make changes and modifications, just as Leonardo da Vinci did on the Gioconda painting, which he always carried with him in his travels and which he constantly retouched.

The waxes are covered with refractory material (“loto”) and the “loto” molds are fired in the furnaces.

The processing of the newly cast bas-reliefs is performed by the Marinelli’s Foundry together with Liviu.

The bas-reliefs are welded and assembled to form the two parts of the door followed by a well-deserved lunch.

In January 2019 Liviu returns to Italy in the Foundry for final testing, and then we celebrated with another lunch.

The doors, patinated, waiting for the packaging and shipping to Laguna Beach.