Giambologna, portrayed by the painter Hendrick Goltzius,

arrives in Florence in the early fifties of the 1500s, hosted for two or three years by Bernardo Vecchietti, who introduced him to Francesco I dei Medici, making him take his service.

The Medici, who was moving from the Signoria Palace to the Pitti Palace hosted him in The Signoria Palace. Time after Giambologna moved renting a house (Vietti house) in Borgo San Jacopo, and about a year later went to live in Borgo Pinti. In fact, here he bought for 2,000 scudi, plus 600 of expenses, the house with shop at the current number 26 of this street, which later became Bellini delle Stelle Palace.

In 1587 Francesco I succeeded his brother Ferdinando I, who even more esteemed Giambologna, so much so that he had at his expense the construction of a new foundry where was the old shop. The works began on 12 December 1587. In January 1588 the roof had already been installed, and subsequently the facade was rebuilt on the road, still present today.

The coat of arms of Giambologna is applied to the facade on top and the bust of Francesco I carved by Giambologna himself above the entrance door,

and the large room of the lost wax foundry was built next to it, with a large door.

The models that Giambologna had in the shop of Palazzo Vecchio, including the clay model of the monumental Rape of the Sabine, were immediately transferred. The artist was able to cast the great monuments on his own without using the other grand-ducal Florentine foundries.

The first cast that was performed was that of the Equestrian monument of Cosimo I today in Piazza Signoria ,

powred in the night between 27 and 28 September 1591, with the help of the Venetian Giuliano Alberghetti along with others. Cosimo I’s son, Don Giovanni dei Medici, also attended at the cast. It was a foundry that had no comparisons throughout Europe, and lasted until the mid-eighteenth century, when the workers scattered in other foundries. Among others there worked Pietro Francavailla, Susini, Francesco and Guasparri della Bella (brothers of Stefano della Bella).

The three years from the construction of the foundry to the casting of the equestrian monument of Cosimo I demonstrate the difficulties encountered in the enterprise, so much so that the intervention of the expert Venetian founder Giovanni Alberghetti was requested to prepare the suitable furnace. For Cosimo I and for Ferdinando I, after filling the wax with the clay it needed almost a year to allow this to dry well during the summer. For Ferdinand I then spent another three years between the cast of the horse and that of the knight, powred in November 1605.

Then the knights on horseback came out the foundry for the squares of Florence, Madrid, Paris: the equestrian monument of Ferdinando II in piazza SS. Annunziata (by Giambologna, but finished, after his death in 1608, by Tacca); the equestrian monument of Philip IV of Spain 1616, in the Plaza de Oriente in Madrid, also this by Giambologna and finished by Tacca (gift of the Grand Duke dei Medici to the King of Spain);

the equestrian monument of Henry IV of France wanted by his wife Maria dei Medici after his death. This monument underwent various vicissitudes, was lost at sea during transport due to a shipwreck, was recovered and transported to the Pont Neuf in Paris; it was then destroyed during the French Revolution. But thanks to the discovery of the negative cast, in 1818 it was possible to make a second replica.

As the orders increased, the physical decay of Giambologna corresponded, so much so that he was forced, even if willingly, to surrender the reins of the foundry to Tacca not yet twenty-five years old, which became its owner at his death, despite of the problems with the heirs. The workshop of Borgo Pinti had in fact become a great artistic foundry where the Tacca had entered in 1592 becoming also a clever foundry man. Tacca began his training between March and June with the task of refining the base of the monument of Cosimo I, until becoming, in a few years, head of the foundry, and intended to complete the latest works of Giambologna. The monument was placed and inaugurated at the beginning of October 1608, for the arrival of Mary Magdalene of Austria, who on October 18 was to marry Cosimo II, son of Ferdinando III.

The experience and skill of the foundry team increased gradually: it was possible to obtain the casting of Ferdinando I more subtle than that of Cosimo I, so much so that it weighed less than Cosimo I’s horse. The thicknesses were always refined by more, the Henry IV of France was even thinner and lighter, that of Philip IV of Spain the lightest of all.

With this last, the casting technique in several parts was inaugurated, proving to have acquired and perfected the assembly and welding technique of the castings, which he then continued to use as, for example, in the two marine animal fountains in Santissima Annunziata square in Florence.

The technique of lost wax casting, called indirect, allowed the reproducibility of a model in several bronze replicas. The Medici had very quickly understood, as early as 1564, that works of art were ideal diplomatic gifts. So Grand Duke Cosimo I and his son Francesco I gave to the Emperor Maximilian II, future brother-in-law of the youngest Medici, three bronzes of Giambologna: the life-size Mercury (now in private collection),

In 1553 in Arezzo, during the excavations for the foundations of the Medici fortress, a bronze was found of a strange animal with a lion’s head, a panther’s body and a goat’s head “stuck” on its back, as Vasari wrote. It was immediately recognized as the mythological Chimera, and was brought to Palazzo Vecchio in Florence at the behest of Cosimo I de’ Medici, who added it to its collection of antiquities, later transferred to Palazzo Pitti. Continuing the work of the Medici fortress of Arezzo was also found the tail, ending with the head of a snake, and that only in the ‘600, with a coarse restoration, was applied to the body, but in a wrong position. Later, in the eighteenth century it was taken to the Uffizi Gallery, and finally to the palace that became at the end of the 19th century the Archaeological Museum of Florence where it was inventoried under n. 1.

It is an Etruscan bronze cast at the fourth century BC, on the right leg appears an Etruscan inscription dedicated to the god Tinia.

Several times this magnificent bronze was required for exhibitions of many museums of various parts of the world. And a serious problem has arisen: if in the transport by ship or by plane the original is lost what will happen? Losing such a masterpiece would be a tragedy and a crime. So the Archaeological Superintendence has created the project of the “identical”, the creation of absolutely identical replicas of these bronzes, to be sent to the various exhibitions and to keep the original in the Museum.

The Archaeological Museum of Florence then contacted the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli through the Galleria Bazzanti, to start talking about the possibility of making a negative cast not only on the Etruscan Chimera, but also on two other Etruscan bronzes in the Museum: the Minerva Etrusca, and the Idolino, to then cast the identical ones. Having ascertained the foundry’s capacity and working quality, they gave the job. Our technicians have reached the laboratories of the Archaeological Superintendency and have begun to perform, with extreme care, the negative mold of the Chimera in silicon rubber and plaster shell

From the mold, transported with care in the foundry, they obtained and retouched the waxes to which they applied the “colate”, carried out and worked the casting, assembled and welded the parts

The “identical” of the Chimera was exhibited at the Archaeological Museum, and then was sent to the exhibition “Etruscan Seduction. From the secrets of Holkham Hall to the wonders of the British Museum”.

Ferdinando Marinelli, owner of the Artistic Foundry, was then invited to the Archaeological Museum of Florence to give a short lecture on “Identical” to the insiders.
On that occasion, the group “The Friends of the Chimera” was born, located in the Archaeological Museum of Florence.

Coming from Castelvecchio di Poggibonsi, the Corsini family settled in Florence in the mid-twelfth century, in the district of San Felice in Piazza, and made a rapid career as bankers, obtaining important political offices in the city where they had important positions. In the 16th and 17th centuries the properties on the Lungarno changed, the Ardinghelli, the Altoviti, the Archbishop Scarampi, Machiavelli, and the Medici family arrived. The Corsini began with the purchase in this area in 1604 of the houses of Machiavelli family, in 1648 of the casino of Don Lorenzo dei Medici, in 1649 Maria Maddalena Machiavelli married the Marquis Filippo Corsini bringing in other properties. Purchases continued until 1728, including the houses of Niccolò Compagni, which were then incorporated into Corsini palace: we have already said that we can see remains in Via del Parione.

Meanwhile in 1730 the Cardinal Lorenzo Corsini, Vatican treasurer, was made Pope with the name of Clement XII, great patron of art (Fontana di Trevi, facade of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano and Musei Capitolini in Rome). And perhaps for this reason the marble sculpture studio was built in the rooms of the building, then Galleria Bazzanti.

The construction began in 1656 with the project of the architect Alfonso Parisi Jr. who after a few years was replaced by Ferdinando Tacca, also famous for his sculptures and heir of the lost wax technic of Giambologna. From 1679 to 1681 the works passed to the architect Pierfrancesco Silvani, who designed the volumes, then he died in 1685 when the architect Anton Maria Ferri took over and gave the building its current appearance. The building was completed in 1737, renouncing the right body, and the building is in fact asymmetric.

After the left wing of the building, there is a terrace, still owned by Corsini, under which there are rooms with a single floor, as can be seen well in the Zocchi view. Rooms that cross the entire building and reach on the back Via del Parione. Since the end of the seventeenth century these rooms have hosted an uninterrupted series of stonemasons, stone and marble sculptors and sculptors “interior” at the Corsini palace, who have worked for the decoration and finishing of the building itself, both inside and outside. The last of the series, Luigi Bozzolini, has worked here since 1815. Then in 1822 took over the sculptor Pietro Bazzanti with his son Niccolò.

In the following years the Gallery, while maintaining the same name as Bazzanti, was sold to other owners.

The sculpture studio was moved elsewhere and the Gallery became the show-room for the sale of sculptures and replicas of marble classics. In 1960 the Marinelli family, owners of the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli, took over into the Gallery and the marble sculpting studios in Pietrasanta and Cararra, near the Carrrara marble quarries.

After a first defeat suffered at the end of the 1st century AD from the Roman army commanded by the emperor Domitian, at the beginning of the 2nd century AD the Emperor Trajan with 15 legions managed to defeat and subdue the Dacian people with his king Decebalus, annexing his territories to the Roman empire. The Dacians proved to be very strong warriors and the conquest costed many lives to the Romans, but they brought to Rome the treasure of Decebalus, that is a huge gold and silver booty, in addition to 500,000 enslaved prisoners.

The victory over the Dacians was so difficult and important that it remained for some centuries to follow: when Trajan returned, the famous Trajan Column, in which are carved the victories of the emperor over this people, was erected in Rome . And even later figures of Dacians were represented in many monuments, with the typical Phrygian cap, chained and defeated, as for example at the base of the Arch of Constantine erected two centuries later.

Some important citizens of Bucharest (Executive President of the Association of Contemporary Cultural Identity of Bucharest Florin C. Pîrlea, together with the Professor of History of Roman Art of the University of Perpignon, France and Honorary President of the Association Dr. Leonard Velcescu) came to visit us in Galleria Bazzanti to let us know the desire of the Romanian people to have a replica of one of the statues of a Dacian nobleman in original size, kept in the Boboli Gardens in Florence to be placed in a Bucharest Town Square.

After signing the agreement, the Bazzanti Sculpture Studio has accurately taken the model (it is important that the replica is very faithful) and started the complicated search for marble. A block of “Red Lagoon” was chosen, extracted from a quarry in Turkey that was sent to the Studio for the execution “ai punti” of the Opera (ancient sculpture making system that guarantees the fidelity of the carved replica).

The block has been sawn bringing it to the right size for the sculpture.

We celebrated, as a must, together with the Romanian commission the beginning of the work with a lunch in Pietrasanta, then the work progressed to reach the pre-finishing stage, again inviting the Romanian Commission to visit the work.

After the acceptance test and approval of the “magnificent finished replica”, as it was defined by them, we celebrated the success of the Opera by lunching and toasting with excellent wines from Romania in a well-known restaurant in Colonnata.

The statue is then packed waiting for the departure for Bucharest.

In January 2017, Dr. Wei He, the founder of the He University Campus in Shenyang, is visiting the Bazzanti Gallery.

He is looking for marble and bronze replicas of ancient and renaissance masterpieces, searching for sculptures created only on molds taken from the originals, and executed with the same techniques used in the Renaissance. The professor Wei He wants to give life in the great Campus to the project “Little Florence”, a collection of perfect and exciting replicas of all the masterpieces of the Florentine Renaissance. After visiting the Bazzanti Gallery and the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry, he requests a consultation from Ferdinando Marinelli at the University Campus in China.

In September, Dr. Wei He, the Chinese ambassador, local authorities and Ferdinando Marinelli ascend to the statuesque white marble caves in Carrara. The Doctor ordered the reproduction of Michelangelo’s David in original size. The contract is signed on a block of marble, followed by a lunch party, and a visit to the Bazzanti Studio of sculpture near by the quarries.

The request of Dr. Wei He is categorical: the work must be perfect. The first step will therefore be that of finding the gigantic block of white Carrara marble; the sculptors of the Bazzanti Sculpture Studio will have to study each block, of the appropriate dimensions, extract: they will have to understand from the spots on the surface if they “carry” (as they say in the jargon of the marble workers) inside striations and which trend will have in the block, and if the could be cracks or internal cracks that could compromise the work. The choice will not be easy because only a perfect block will be the one from which the masterpiece will be born. The search for the right block requires a few months, until the really “right” one, weighting about 40 tons, is find.

Further checks and measurements are carried out: here we are, the block is loaded onto the truck and transported and positioned at the Bazzanti Sculpting Studio.

The plaster model taken from the original that will serve for the exact execution of the marble is taken from the Gipsoteca of the Artistic Foundry Ferdinando Marinelli, and is placed next to the marble block at the Studio

The work begins: a first “draft” is carried out to bring the block closer to the dimensions of the David, then a second “sbozzo”, a third “sbozzo”, until it approaches the shapes and to the identical volumes of the original David.

All this with the “points technique” and the use of the “machine”, an ancient three – dimensional pantograph system with a rudimentary appearance but very precise, which we will discuss in the future.
Work is still underway!

XII Century was a century of great population growth, and the suburbs continued to spread outside the walls, so much so that in 1172 it was decided to build new stones walls considerably larger that would incorporate them. To create the defense moat, the Mugnone river was moved again, making it unload in the Arno in the current Goldoni square. It is at this time that the bank of the Arno is reclaimed, and that the road along the Arno that will become the Lungarno Corsini is born. In this century of great building expansion, buildings were built throughout the area included in the new walls; the road that later became the Lungarno Corsini, future location of the Galleria Bazzanti, bordered the river on the west side of the Borgo district, where some Florentine families had land and buildings

The Lungarno Corsini is that stretch on the right side of the Arno river that goes from Santa Trìnita bridge

to Alla Carraia bridge. Both bridges were rebuilt in their original form after the destruction of the German troops in the last war. The first printed views of Florence date back to the second half of the fifteenth century; the most famous is the Berlinese view called “della Catena” which dates back to around 1470; It is printed on six sheets, and is in the Prints Cabinet of the Berlin Museum.

There are others of the late fifteenth century, the best known of which is the so-called “Schedeliana view” which is part of the H. Schedel Liber Chronicarum printed in Nuremberg in 1493.

In both we see how the future Lungarno Corsini is bounded to the right of the crenellated Feroni-Spini palace built at the end of the 13th century in correspondence of the Santa Trìnita bridge, and to the left from Ricasoli palace, (wrongly located inside the river and beyond Ponte alla Carraia in the Schedeliana view). We can also see how the Lungarno did not continue beyond the Carraia bridge. Also interesting is the Ghirlandaio fresco in the Sassetti Chapel of Santa Trìnita Church painted in 1475 with the stories of St. Francis: in the Miracle of the resurrected boy we can see the church of Santa Trìnita in that time, the fourteenth-century Carraia bridge and, to the right, the beginning of the Lungarno.

The first “scientific” view of Florence is the “Buonsignori” one of 1594

in which the houses of the Gianfigliazzi correspond to the number 211, while at n. 160 is the Ricasoli building. Halfway across the square is the piazza Gianfigliazzi which, through an archway, gave access to Via della Fonte (today via del Parioncino); this space was later occupied by the construction of a building for the enlargement of the Vallombrosian monastery of Santa Trìnita designed by Michelozzo with the central “Flemish” window.

We can also see how the Lungarno ended with the Ricasoli palace and the Alla Carraia bridge. It will be continued with the construction of the “Lungarno Nuovo” in 1870. The widest part of the trapezium-shaped area was owned by the “Compagni” family up to the transverse wall that divided their garden from that of the Ricasoli family. We can see the large houses of the Compagni on Via del Parione dismantled and partly incorporated into the back of the Corsini palace near by the back entrance of the Galleria Bazzanti.

As soon as you enter the Galleria Bazzanti, you can see a print of Palazzo Corsini hanging: the most ancient views of the Lungarno are the large engravings of the Zocchi of about 1740.
In the first figure you can see the western part of the Lungarno, with the Cosini palace in the center and its left terrace (in front of which a horse carriage passes), then immediately before the Carraia bridge the Ricasoli Palace, and on the extreme right the house of the Vallombrosani with the large cross window, work of Michelozzo Architect, that has taken the place of the ancient square Gainfigliazzi. the other two figures are enlargements of a part of the Zocchi’s engraving showing the Corsini palace and the three doors and a window under the terrace, where the study of stone and marble sculpture was placed and that in the 19th century became the Galleria Bazzanti.

In another Zocchi’s engraving the foreshortened view of the Lungarno towards the Santa Trìnita bridge; on the left, after the Ricasoli palace, we see the three doorways and window under the Corsini terrace (with the same carriage passing in front of it), then the Corsini palace. Curious as the Lungarno in the direction of the Old Bridge (Ponte Vecchio), at the height of the S. Trìnita bridge, it passed under an arch of the Spini Feroni palace (then Ferragamo), which no longer exists.

Of the early 19th century is a painting by Fabio Borbottoni where on the right you can see the Corsini terrace with under two openings and the curtains of the sculpture studio and Galleria Bazzanti, and a view of Lungarno Corsini by Giovanni Signorini of 1846 (detail).

In the mid 19th century photo the end of the Lungarno Corsini appears with the Ricasoli building transformed into the New York Hotel (it had been Hotel since the second half of the 18th century under the names of “The English House” and then “Hotel du Nord”) and, beyond the Alla Carraia bridge, the beginning of the demolitions for the opening of the Lungarno Nuovo.

A photo from 1869 tells us that of the three doors of the sculpture studio existing in the 18th century under the terrace, one was closed, and the window enlarged.

In the last part of the 19th century there was a significant architectural change: the Ricasoli palace was laterally extended: in fact, on the Lungarno two more windows appear, which from 8 (first picture) become 10, and a second lateral entrance is created decentralized (second picture), to the detriment of a part of the adjacent building.

For some years nothing changed, with the exception of the curtains in the Galleria Bazzanti and the fact that the reduced construction became part of the New York Hotel.

During the 20th century, a further architectural change brought the building adjacent to the Ricasoli palace back, allowing the extension of the terrace and the creation of other shops with other doors.

Years later his nephew Cosimo II ordered to the sculptor Pietro Tacca, a pupil of Giambologna, a bronze replica of the marble Porcellino to be brought back to Palazzo Pitti. Tacca executed the mold in 1612 and in 1633 he cast it in bronze with the lost wax technique.