Specializing in paintings, sculpture, and furniture from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, Tornabuoni Arte – Arte Antica was founded in 2006 by Roberto Casamonti, expanding the longstanding activity of the Tornabuoni group in modern and contemporary art.
Located on Via Maggio, one of Florence’s oldest streets, the gallery occupies the ground floor of Palazzo Giovanni, a prestigious 14th-century palace near Palazzo Pitti. Historically known as the city’s “Via Maggiore,” the street was crossed by the Medici family when they moved to Palazzo Pitti in the 16th century. By the early 19th century, it had become Florence’s antique district, home to numerous galleries and artisans.
Tornabuoni Arte – Arte Antica stands out for its focus on Renaissance and Baroque masters, including glazed terracottas by the Della Robbia family.
Among the gallery’s most distinctive features are a frescoed main hall and a hidden room devoted to 14th- and 15th-century panel paintings, the so-called “gold-ground paintings.” In the soft light recalling medieval chapels, these works shine in all their mystical splendor.
The gallery has recently expanded with a new exhibition space on Via Maggio, occupying the ground floor of Palazzo Bianca Cappello, adjacent to its main Arte Antica headquarters.
VIEW OF CASTEL SANT’ANGELO IN ROME
Gaspar van Wittel called Vanvitelli
(Amersfoort, 1652 – Rome, 1736)
Medium: oil on canvas
36.5 x 50.5 cm
Expertise: Giancarlo Sestieri
Publications:
“Gaspar van Wittel called Vanvitelli,” exhibition catalog edited by Valentina Becchetti, Galleria
Cesare Lampronti, Rome, 2011, pp. 30-31.
Exhibitions:
“Highlights,” Internationale Kunstmesse München, Munich, October 2011.
This picturesque view, taken from the banks of the Tiber, immortalizes one of the most iconic
and well-known buildings in Rome, Castel Sant’Angelo, toward which the ancient Ponte Sant’Angelo,
crowned with Bernini statues, extends. In the distance, St. Peter’s and the Vatican Palaces can be glimpsed. It is now
approaching evening, and the busy figures animating the proscenium are bathed
in a grazing light that casts long shadows on the ground. This evocative vision has been
traced by Giancarlo Sestieri to the early work of Gaspar van Wittel, the painter to whom
the initials (GVW) on a barrel at the bottom center refer.
The famous view painter began his education in his native town, studying with Mathias
Withoos (1627-1703). Arriving in Rome in 1674, he began his career as a
view painter around the 1680s. According to the scholar, the painting under study belongs to the painter’s first phase,
“in perfect harmony with the Panoramic View of Rome from the Trinità dei Monti […] from the
Colonna collection and the View of Rome with the Ponte Rotto and the Aventine in the Background” from the
Palazzo Braschi Museum, dated 1681 and 1685, respectively.
STORIES OF SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA
Andrea di Niccolò
(Siena, 1445 – 1525)
Medium: tempera on panel
34 x 96 cm
Expertise: Marco Ciampolini
Publications:
“Lovers, Human and Divine Passions,” exhibition catalog edited by Don Alessio Geretti, Udine, 2017,
pp. 154-155.
Exhibitions:
“Lovers, Human and Divine Passions,” Illegio Exhibition House, Udine, May – October 2017.
The delicate chromatic combinations alone—such as the juxtaposition of green and pink in the
niches framing the saints—would be enough to reveal the Sienese origins of this late
fifteenth-century panel. The stone towers towering over the buildings and walls, whose pictorial rendering
reflects the use of brick, then convey, on the left of the panel, the unmistakable silhouette
of the Tuscan city, perched on rolling hills.
As exhaustively reconstructed by Marco Ciampolini, author of a study on the painting, the two main scenes
placed between the niches focus on two episodes from the life of Saint Catherine (1347-1380)
narrated by Raimondo da Capua: her “mystical marriage” with the Lord, who appeared together with
other saints in her cell after a fast, and the episode in which the Sienese saint dresses Christ
in the guise of a beggar, a charitable act later rewarded by him with the gift of a cloak studded with precious stones.
The first scene, Ciampolini specifies, is inspired by a panel by Neroccio di Bartolomeo de’ Landi (formerly
London, M.R. Waddingham collection) dating to around 1468. However, “the figures, the arrangement of the scenes,
and even the overall concept” seem to reflect “the art of Matteo di
Giovanni (c. 1430-1495),” but expressed with a “candor of feeling and […] naiveté of expression” that allow the work to be compared to his follower Andrea di Niccolò.
The proposed attribution of the panel to this painter is supported by interesting comparisons with works
by the artist, such as the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian in the Civic Museum of Colle Val d’Elsa, which, according to the scholar, dates to the early 16th century.
PAIR OF FALCONIERI FAMILY COATS OF ARMS
Florentine sculptor, designed by Matteo di Dionigi Nigetti
(Florence, first half of the 17th century)
Technique: marble, gold and silver applications, tortoiseshell inserts
100 x 50 x 10 cm
This important pair of white marble coats of arms, of exceptional quality, mirrors the Falconieri coat of arms: “Gules, a ladder of three steps chequered argent and azure.”
Originally from Fiesole, the Falconieri family had distinguished itself in Florence, where it had resided since the early13th century, for its fierce political commitment, culminating in the participation of some of its members among the Guelphs in the Battle of Montaperti.
The value of the two slabs derives not only from the fine relief workmanship of the marble but also
from the surprising preservation of the gold, silver, and tortoiseshell applications.
The size, the rectangular format, and the mirrored arrangement of the helmets suggest that these
marble arms were part of the decoration of an altar, bordered on the sides by family
insignia. The style of the ornamentation, the treatment of scrolls and ribbons, and the overall refined elegance
recall the Florentine artistic milieu of the early 17th century. At that time, Florentine art was
strongly influenced by the Medici construction of the Cappella dei Principi in the Basilica of San
Lorenzo. These considerations lead to the connection of the two coats of arms to the destroyed altar of the Falconieri
chapel, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, in the right transept of the Santissima Annunziata.
The altar was dismantled during the renovation of the chapel between 1760 and 1767, following the
canonization of Saint Giuliana Falconieri in 1737.
The most authoritative source for the attribution of these Falconieri coats of arms is a pen drawing from the
convent of the Santissima Annunziata. From 1610, the convent’s architect was Matteo di Dionigi
Nigetti (Florence 1570-1649). We are convinced that the drawing of the
coats of arms in question must be attributed to Nigetti. The stylized leaves above the helmets seem to anticipate the exuberant acanthus cascades, in a fully Baroque style, that flank the Colloredo family coat of arms
in the eponymous chapel at the Annunciation, sculpted by Francesco Mochi between 1647 and 1648 based on a design by Nigetti himself.
Finally, the highly refined “Dutch-style” decorative technique used on the two Falconieri coats of arms to render the checkered pattern of the staircase deserves attention. The use of tortoiseshell panels on small blue and silver squares is surprising for such an ancient work, given that this technique only became widespread in Florence in the second half of the 17th century, after the trip to Holland of the future Cosimo III de’ Medici. However, it should be remembered that the church of the Santissima Annunziata, since the 16th century, had been a crucial meeting point for Florentine artists (in the Chapel of the Painters, home of the Accademia del Disegno) and a privileged place of transit for Northern European artists. It is therefore plausible that Nigetti, intrigued by the novelty of this technique and inclined to experiment, turned to a Dutch specialist to more effectively characterize the Falconieri weapons.
PUTTO WITH DOLPHIN
16th-century Mannerist sculptor, circle of Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli
Technique: white marble
90 x 35 x 45 cm
Expertise: Gabriele Fattorini
The sculptural group presented here depicts a putto riding a dolphin, which can be dated to the Mannerist period according to a study conducted by Professor Fattorini.
It is likely that our sculpture served as an ornamental element for a fountain, with water flowing from the animal’s mouth, now sealed.
As Fattorini notes in his writing, the association between the figure of the putto and a marine creature is a recurring motif in Italian Renaissance sculpture, dating back to the 15th century.
Notable examples include Verrocchio’s bronze Putto with Dolphin, originally conceived for the fountain at Villa Medici in Careggi, and Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s Dying Putto at the Bode Museum in Berlin; The theme was revived in the decorations of the Chapel of the Relics in the Tempio Malatesta in Rimini, by Agostino di Duccio, and in the fireplace by Desiderio da Settignano (no. 5086-1859) at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The image of a putto riding a fish (or a marine mammal) may have originated in ancient sculpture, particularly the Satyr Riding a Dolphin (Villa Borghese, Rome), from which it derived.
A similar subject was inevitably destined to be incorporated into the furnishing elements of some of the major monumental fountains of the 16th century, such as the Tribolosque Hercules and Antaeus fountain in Villa Castello, a work by Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli of Messina’s Orione, or the Bolognese Neptune fountain
by Giambologna. One of these smaller fountains was the Putto Riding a Dolphin (no. 1116) from the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Esztergom, which displays a similar approach to our group.
In our sculpture, we note “a more meticulous attention to the rendering of the scales and fins of the
grotesque marine animal, which menacingly displays its teeth and elegantly twists its tail fin
behind the head of the youth, who raises his right hand to support it, in a complicated interplay
and with an unnatural movement, clearly of Michelangelo’s influence.”
We can therefore affirm that the sculptural group falls within the canons of Mannerism, around the
mid-sixteenth century, when figures of this genre began to become very popular in Florence,
spreading even beyond the borders of Tuscany.
