MORGANTE - A MEDICI FAVOURITE DWARF RIDES A TORTOISE - IAN COX's ITALIAN ART OBJECT OF THE MONTH - JULY 2015

MORGANTE - A MEDICI FAVOURITE DWARF RIDES A TORTOISE


It's back to Florence for this month's object and I'm reminded of it today by a fridge magnet I'm examining which I bought last time we were in the city. We'd been on a special tour of the Vasari corridor built in the middle of the 16th century for Cosimo de Medici which links, as it always has done, the Uffizi with the Pitti Palace on the other side of the River Arno. Almost half a mile in length and passing over the top of the shops surmounting the Ponte Vecchio, this intriguing private corridor today houses a significant collection of portraits of dignitaries and celebrities from times gone by. At the end of the tour the exit leads to a corner of the renowned Boboli Gardens and a just a few yards away from the door is the sculpture which is the subject of this months blog posting. There are dozens of statues in the various areas of the beautiful Boboli, but this is perhaps the strangest of them all and it causes quite a stir with the tourist visitors who come to this part of the gardens.

.
The statue is in fact part of  a fountain entitled "Fontana del Bacchino" which is made up of an oval shaped cistern sitting in front of a square pedestal which in turn is surmounted by a giant tortoise on top of which sits the figure of Morgante - the court dwarf of Cosimo I Medici. It was sculpted by Valerio Cigoli and completed in 1560. Many of the visitors who view it today are repulsed by the life like depiction of the nude, male dwarf figure and its non politically correct subject matter; when they discover a little more about it, this does little to endear it to them. Today we know that extreme short stature in humans (achondroplasia) is caused by a genetic mutation resulting in an irreversible imbalance of growth hormones during development and generally speaking individuals suffering from it now don't suffer the indignities they were forced to endure in earlier times. The statue in the Boboli of Morgante, however, fascinates many viewers and I was certainly one of those when I saw it. I knew that as soon as I got home it would be out with the books and a thorough search of the internet to find out more about this famous character.

Dwarves were a common occurrence at many European courts in the 16th century. They were considered to be curiosities of nature and as "possessions" of monarchs and Dukes they were often listed in inventories along with expensive items of jewellery, textiles and clothing. As symbols of wealth and power they were expected, in jester fashion, to amuse and entertain members of court and provide companionship to their owners. A series of 16th century art works by Johann Stradanus, engraved by Phillip Galle shows various scenes from the Coronation of Cosimo I Medici as Grand Duke of Tuscany and the examples shown below indicated the Duke had several dwarves attend him at the ceremony.

Scenes from the Coronation of Cosimo I Medici
by Johann Stradanus

Surviving records reveal that Braccio di Bartolo - known as Morgante at the Medici court, arrived in Florence in 1540. His name is an ironic one as he was named Morgante after the giant Morgante Maggiore, the subject of the 15th century epic poem by Luigi Pulci. Whilst its known that Morgante the dwarf suffered the same humiliations endured by many court dwarves on a number of occasions his status and reputation at the Florentine court was special. Vasari writes of him as "clever" and "learned" and a record from 1555 describes Cosimo I describing Morgante as "our beloved dwarf'. Other sources reveal he was not only an entertainer at court, but a special companion of the Grand Duke and on a number of occasions he accompanied him on important diplomatic missions. So important did Morgante become to Cosimo that he made a grant of land to him and gave him permission to marry. Given the important position of influence he held at court and his renowned reputation, its not surprising he should be represented in a number of works of art as well as the stone fountain already described here. I can thus finish this posting by introducing a couple of other art works where he is the primary subject.

Nano Morgante riding a dragon by Giambologna (1529-1608)
Roof garden of the Loggia dei Lanze, Florence

In this bronze sculpture by the renowned artist Giambologna \\(1529-1608) Nano Morgante sits astride a dragon - an imitation of a sculpture by the Grand Duke of Tuscany's goldsmith Corneio della Nera. Morgante has one hand raised to "still the water" in the fountain bowl - a gesture parodying an act carried out by Neptune the Roman God of the sea.

Nano Morgante in a painting by Bronzino

In January 2011 curators at the Uffizi gallery held a press conference connected with a major retrospective exhibition on the Mannerist painter Bronzino and one particular work of art held centre stage. It was a painting of Nano Morgante which, recently restored, hadn't been seen in its original form for nigh on 200 years. It had been over-painted in parts (guess which) because of what was considered to be obscene subject matter, in the 18th century. The double sided picture had been completed by the artist in 1553 and was listed in a Medici inventory of that date. The frontal view of the dwarf shows him posing with a large hunting owl perched on a raised hand whilst moths flutter round his genitals. The rear view shows the owl perched on his shoulder whilst he holds a trophy of captured birds in his right hand. Vasari wrote of the work - "He made a full length painting of the dwarf Morgante in two ways ...... the picture is both beautiful and marvellous".

Like many of Bronzino's other paintings (Venus and Cupid in London's National Gallery comes to mind) there are issues in the picture for contemplation and here the artist is, according to some art historians, playing with the idea of the merits of painting versus the "nobility" of sculpture. Showing both front and reverse views of the subject and the beginning and end of the bird hunt at the same time Bronzino appears to be commenting on the inherent flexibility of painting as a medium.

To finish off by returning to the sculpture in the Boboli Gardens - (which interestingly and for obvious reasons which I forgot to mention, is a copy of the original work) - Morgante astride the tortoise is an ironic comment on the notion of the classical equestrian statue of the glorious victor on horseback. How many of those are looked at and ignored these days?

So - like it or not - this month's object tells us a lot - not only about aristocratic artistic tastes in mid 16th century Florence, but also in providing an unusual insight in to an aspect of Medici court life which is intriguing even if we might find it unpalatable today. Fascinating!! - I don't regret showing off my non PC fridge magnet at all - in fact its one of my favourites.

CIAO & KBO
IAN

Read my blog on an ongoing basis and sign up for alerts. There's a new Object in Focus every month and other items of interest in between. Postings began with the purchase of our apartment in Umbria in January 2014. Cheers, Ian.

"JUNE" A CERAMIC LABOUR OF THE MONTH BY LUCCA DELLA ROBBIA

AN OBJECT FOR SUMMER

"JUNE" - ONE OF THE LABOURS OF THE MONTHS
By Lucca della Robbia (1399-14820)

Made in Florence, Italy about 1450-56
Diameter 59.7cms

Location - Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

I've mentioned my interest in Renaissance Italian ceramics in previous postings and promised to write about a visit I've made to the historic pottery making town of Deruta in Umbria in recent months. I'm prompted just now, however, to include a ceramic item in my monthly "object in focus" series for 2015. Back in the 1980's, long before the Victoria and Albert Museum had drawn up plans for the re-display of the Renaissance collections, I used to wander the ground floor badly lit linoleum covered corridors where objects from the Italian collections were housed and displayed. One of my favourite stopping points was a wall mounted display of 12 pottery roundels which were entitled "Labours of the Months" and its one of these, appropriately entitled "June" that I've chosen to focus on here. 

Measuring just short of 60 centimetres and with a relief decorated narrow border, beyond that is another painted border decorated in light and dark blue to indicate night and day at that time of year and with an inscription giving the number of daylight hours. The sun is shown in the Zodiac sign of cancer (note the little crab motif) and opposite in the dark blue band is the crescent moon. The labour of the month shown here is a young man harvesting a hay crop with a scythe. Near him he has bound the stalks in to a group of sheaves which lie on the ground. The other roundels in the set each depict a separate labour relevant to the annual cycle. 

THE MONTH OF JUNE
"LABOURS OF THE MONTHS"
BY LUCCA DELLA ROBBIA

The Labours of the Months were commonly found as part of elaborate schemes of decoration to be found in European late medieval/ early renaissance churches and sometimes in medieval illuminated manuscripts. The use of the cycle in terms of Italian Renaissance pottery making seems to be unique though as the curators at the V & A say there is nothing else quite like it.

THE TWELVE ROUNDELS OF THE LUCCA DELLA ROBBIA
"LABOURS OF THE MONTHS"

The roundel itself was crafted in the middle of the 15th century from terra cotta covered with a layer of tin glaze - a white powedery material which when dried could be painted on with more tin glaze tinted with various pigments. The technique was used extensively to make pots in Renaissance Italy and Lucca della Robbia (1399-1482) specialised in producing sculptural objects for installation in architectural schemes. Unusually for this workshop, only the architectural leaf motif border is sculpted - the naturalistic decoration itself painted on to the surface of the roundel.

The set of roundels  appear to have been made for  the private study (studiolo) of Piero Medici at the Palazzo Medici in Florence, created by him in the 1450's next to the family church of San Lorenzo. What is also fascinating is that each of the roundels has a curved disposition indicating they were used to decorate the barrel vault of Piero's study. Fragments of bits of green and purple tiles on the edge of some of the roundels indicate they must have been set in a a pattern of green and purple tiles - probably representing as closely as possible the colours of the Medici family. The design of each roundel is based on contemporary agricultural practice but descriptions in classical texts was probably also important. Piero had a copy in his library of a 1st century treatise "De Re Rustica" by Columella which describes the labours.

Studiolos were important rooms in the houses of Renaissance princes being used for private study, contemplation and also for the display of collected objects including rare illuminated books, natural history specimens, coins, cameos, medieval ivories and other costly items. The choice of subject for the ceiling roundels, the eternal passage of the seasons, not only resonates with the notion of God's ordering of the universe, but also with man's adaptation to them in the cultivation of food. It has also been suggested that the ceiling might be interpreted as a metaphor for the continuity and order of the Medici regime. 

At the Palazzo Medici in Florence, now known as the Palazzo Medici Riccardo, only the wonderful Gozzoli series of frescoes has survived in situ, for the studiolo was destroyed in an extensive remodelling of the building carried out in 1659. The set of roundels was purchased for the V & A (then the South Kensington Museum) in 1861 from an Italian private collection during the time the museum was actively seeking to develop its Renaissance. collections. In the recent re-display of the Medieval and Renaissance collections the curators chose to place the roundels in a curved structure which would show their original disposition next to a case containing the types of objects that would have been kept in the original room; its an evocative display and worthy of seeking out if a visit to the V and A in London is made. 

THE ROUNDELS ON DISPLAY IN THE RENAISSANCE
GALLERIES AT THE V & A IN LONDON.

CIAO & KBO

This is the 6th Object in Focus and part of a series of 12 about fascinating Italian "items of interest".  New postings are produced at the beginning of each month and other occasional postings occur about other subjects occur inbetween. Take a look back at previous postings which start with the purchase of our apartment in Italy in 2012. Thanks, Ian