Ammannati at the Bargello

Originalveröffentlichung in: The Burlington magazine, 153 (2011), August, S. 557-558 The following exhibition review is a postprint of a review in the Burlington Magazine of August 2011 (vol. 153, pages 557-558)* Ammannati at the Bargello Florence by CHARLES DAVIS AMONG THE MUSEUMS of the world, the August 1555 onwards. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, The ‘spectacular reconstruction’ of the Juno is one of the very few whose collections permit Fountain in the Bargello courtyard, promised the organising of exhibitions in which as the chief attraction, is singularly Italian statues, life-size and larger, play the unspectacular. leading role. In recent years it has returned to The statues from the Fountain remain its origins as a national museum of sculpture, under the eastern arcade of the cortile, where not only with notable acquisitions such as they have long stood in essentially the same Pietro Francavilla’s marble Jason, acquired in arrangement. No attempt is made to set their 2001, but also, from 2004, with a series of reassembly into relief by, for example, lighting monographic exhibitions devoted to Italian effects or through adding an isolating sculptors, mainly of the sixteenth century. background. Florence and its museums owe a debt of They recede into the file of white gratitude to Dimitrios Zikos, who has been statues set against white walls that crowd the the guiding light in the recent cycle of exhi - courtyard. An unwitting visitor might pass by, bitions, of which the current one, L’acqua, la overlooking the reconstruction as he or she pietra, il fuoco: Bartolomeo Ammannati scultore (to 1 enters the exhibition galleries. Devoid of 18th September), is here under review. temporary exhibition structures, the galleries In the mid-1550s Ammannati began, but appear larger and less crowded than in the past. never completed, a monumental multi-figured The pale blown-up photographs of pages from wall fountain for the south side of the Sala an Ammannati notebook (Biblioteca Riccardiana, Grande in Florence’s ducal palace, now the Florence) that paper the walls are not Palazzo Vecchio. The Bargello houses six an effective foil for the sculptures in the dimly over-life-size marble statues made for this lit rooms. In room two, mostly small-scale Fountain of Juno (Fig.37). They constitute the works are shown in vitrines. The exhibition point of departure and indeed the conceptual designer’s memorandum suggests that these centre of the exhibition. Unfortunately the problems arise from a cerebral design process, Juno Fountain marks the beginning of the end which aimed to produce a conceptual installation of Ammannati as a sculptor in marble. In this rather than simply devising a visible and visually work his early promise fades in statues marked effective presentation. by the massive participation of his workshop, a The vast catalogue is blemished by a tendency fact unmentioned in the catalogue. Ammannati’s to include many secondary themes, extensive reliance upon assistants in some of which might have been omitted or 2 carving his sculptures may have had its origin published elsewhere. But, in addition to a in his direction of the works at the statuary wealth of new illustrations, there are many court of the Villa Giulia in Rome, where, interesting and important new insights and under the pressure of deadlines, vast numbers contributions. The lengthy biography of of ‘decorative’ statues had to be restored or Ammannati by Alessandro Cherubini is a made under almost assembly line conditions. dispirited reprise of things that have long Despite his recourse to the technical procedure been known. Cherubini’s attempt to establish of pointing – a large wooden compass Montorsoli as Ammannati’s master embodies was acquired for the carving of his colossal a fundamental historiographical mistake. Neptune in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence Borghini’s vita of Ammannati as a sculptor is (1561) – the sculptor, unlike Giambologna and clearly based on his notes from a personal Bernini, was not notably successful in controlling interview with the artist. Ammannati claimed the transposition of his large models into only two masters: first Bandinelli, and then, stone by others. The exhibition is thus weighted dissatisfied with Bandinelli, Jacopo Sansovino. towards a less felicitous period of Ammannati’s Cherubini denies the first period of study with work as a sculptor, that in Florence from Sansovino, which is unequivocally reported The documents reveal the names of by Borghini, but the Sansovinesque inspiration Ammannati’s of Ammannati’s first work, a relief of God sculptural collaborators in making the 3 the Father with angels in Pisa, escapes him Fountain and document their contribution to completely. The subject and composition is the carving of the statues. These documents often found in the work of Sansovino and his require close reading: for instance, the four followers, and the bald putto seen in expensive capitals (‘capitelli intagliati’), Ferretti profile is a distinctive Sansovino motif found believes, imply Corinthian capitals, but they in that master’s Medici altar in the Bargello. were made by intagliatori, not woodcarvers as The principal new contributions to Ammannati is sometimes thought, but stonemasons (scal - 4 as a sculptor are found in three of the essays. pellini) who specialised in lavori d’intaglio. It Most importantly they concern the Juno Fountain, appears that these capitals, carved to often called the Kriegbaum Fountain. The Ammannati’s statues were identified by Friedrich Kriegbaum designs, have survived, and were recycled (1928) and by Giovanni Poggi (1940). In 1963 in the last-minute completion of Bandinelli’s Walter Vitzthum published a contemporary Udienza, as the northern interior façade of the drawing of the assembled Fountain, and in same Sala Grande is called, in 1565, on the 1969 Marco Dezzi Bardeschi attempted a occasion of the marriage of Prince Francesco reconstruction. In the light of contemporary de’ Medici, a project undertaken under Vasari’s descriptions based on a drawing in Ammannati’s direction (Figs. 38 and 39). The capitals do not hands, which Borghini consulted, the resemble the ornamental designs of Bandinelli reconstruction does not constitute an or Baccio d’Agnolo or his son, or even Vasari, intractable puzzle, and it is also implicit but are in Ammannati’s decorative idiom in the configuration of the statues, as Kriegbaum (compare the basis of the Benavides colossus in recognised. Detlef Heikamp has added Padua, the decorative elements of the Neptune two ornamental marble peacocks, an exiguous Fountain, the Palazzo Portinari Salviati in number of new documents for the manufacture Florence), and the conception of the capitals is of the Fountain and a refinement of Dezzi identical with that of the capitals alla grottesca Bardeschi’s reconstruction. In the present [p. 558:] found in Ammannati’s earlier Galleria on catalogue the Dimitrios Zikos and Emanuela Ferretti primo piano of Palazzo Firenze in Rome, where offer new points of departure. Zikos’s well- the decorative repertory of classical capitals is informed replaced by goat heads, festoons, griffins, essay makes new suggestions (and winged figures and birds.5 The Palazzo Vecchio corrections) for the iconography, although his capitals are carved with capricorns, referring observations do not seem guided by a clear, to Cosimo I, and the embracing pairs consistent idea of the concetto of the Fountain. of putti refer to the Duke and Duchess, as did He also provides a more articulated documentary Ammannati’s fountain. When Vasari completed history of the making of the monument and modified the Udienza in the summer (cat. no.6). In Ferretti’s essay the question of the and autumn of 1565 (‘con l’aggiunta di nicchie e Juno Fountain as an architectural wall fountain di pilastri e di statue’ in Vasari’s words) for the is addressed seriously for the first time. Enlarging wedding of Prince Francesco, he apparently on references cited in the Palazzo Vecchio introduced stone elements left over from guide by Alessandro Cecchi and Ettore Allegri Ammannati’s abandoned wall fountain, made (1980), she has read many of the unpublished from the same grey pietra di fossato. documents that permit her to form a general Fernando Loffredo explores new ground in picture of the architectural character of the his essay on Ammannati’s Nari monument Fountain with columns and pilasters, an (Bargello) seen in a pan-Italian perspective, entablature while Amedeo Belluzzi provides a treatment and two windows. Zikos and Ferretti of architectural ornament and decorative convey the impression that the documentation forms in Ammannati’s works, a neglected for the Fountain has been fully treated, but topic of fundamental importance if we wish to most of it remains unpublished and unanalysed. see Ammannati as both sculptor and architect. Some comments on individual works follow: no.1: Leda (Bargello). The identification with Ammannati’s Leda is contradicted by the dimensions given no.15: ‘Genio mediceo’ (Palazzo Pitti, Florence). This in Borghini’s description. The object copies a appeared to be one of the ‘due fanciulle di bronzo’ Michelangelo design and does not lend itself to mentioned by Borghini, very possibly acroterial definite attribution. There are no clear connections figures for the Juno Fountain. with Ammannati, and the striking colour photographs are misleading and artificially dramatic. no.17: Bronze Hercules (Huntington, San Marino). The entry misleadingly suggests that there is a general no.2: Moses (Bargello). The attribution to Ammannati is consensus concerning the attribution to Ammannati. little more than wishful thinking. The object is merely The ponderation and contrapposto is different from an old small-scale replica of Michelangelo. Its status these distinctive traits in Ammannati’s Paduan works. is not different from that of souvenirs sold to tourists. no.25: Nude male (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, no.3: Ganymede (Bargello). There is no indication that Braunschweig).

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