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The ‘candelabrum’ fountain reconsidered

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14601170802332283

1943-2186

Anatole Tchikine,

Architecture and Art History Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements This article, while revisiting the ‘candelabrum’ fountain type, emphasizes the crucial role of water in defining the form and function of Italian Renaissance and Baroque fountains. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Sheila Barker, Edward Goldberg, and Edward McParland for their comments and suggestions offered in the course of its preparation. Notes 1. Bertha Harris Wiles, The Fountains of Florentine Sculptors and Their Followers from Donatello to Bernini (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1933; reprinted in New York by Hacker Art Books, 1975) (hereafter cited as Wiles 1933). 2. Wiles 1933, pp. 21, 22–31. In German and Italian publications, this type of fountain is cited, respectively, as Kandelaberbrunnen and fontana a candelabra. 3. ‘Dalla forma de’ candelieri sopradetti ne sono cavate le fontane, tonde, ovate, e quadre, in fondo di cui si fa il vaso che riceve l’acqua che da di sopra esce fuori da bocche di maschere, o di altre simili cose, ed in cima si fa qualche Dio Marino o ninfa che signoreggi le acque, aggiungendovi anche istorie di Dei del mare ed i suoi amori, come si vede osservato in tanti, dei quali tutto il mondo ne è pieno, e massime Messina, dove fra gli altri è quello tanto celebrato nella vita di frate Angelo scultore, nella quale si legge minutissimamente descritta’ (Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, Trattato dell’ arte de la pittura (Milan: Paolo Gottardo Pontio, 1584), p. 429; partially reproduced in Wiles 1933, p. 22, note 1). 4. Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Les plus excellent bastiments de France … , 2 vols (Paris: Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, 1576–79), I, plates (unnumbered). 5. Wiles 1933, pp. 22–31, 67. 6. The lion heads were carved by Benedetto da Perugia in 1422; the odd pyramidal pinnacles were introduced during the fountain's restoration in 1827. Cecilia Piana Agostinetti, Fontane a Viterbo (Rome: Palombo, 1985), p. 56. 7. Cf. Claudio Tolomei's virtuoso description of his experience of fountains in the garden of Monsignor Giovanni Gaddi in Rome in the letter to Giambattista Grimaldi, 26 July 1543, published in Lettere del Cinquecento, edited by Giuseppe Guido Ferrero, 2nd edition (Turin: Utet, 1967), pp. 361–363. 8. In Villa Barbaro at Maser, designed by Palladio, water featured in the nymphaeum flowed first into the kitchen, then into the garden to irrigate plants (where it also filled two fishponds on either side of the main avenue), and finally into a large orchard. Andrea Palladio, Quattro libri dell’architettura, edited by Licisco Magagnato and Paola Marini (Milan: Poliphilo, 1980), p. 152. 9. Roberto Weiss, ‘The Castle at Gaillon in 1509–10’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XVI, 1953, p. 2. This fountain originally belonged to Cardinal Georges d’Amboise (1460–1510), Governor of Milan (1505), Archbishop of Rouen, and Prime Minister to Louis XII. It was commissioned before 14 December 1506 from Antonio della Porta and his nephew Pace Gaggini, Lombard sculptors active in Genoa, assisted by Agostino Solari, and shipped to France in 1508. Some evidence suggests that this fountain was intended as a gift to the Cardinal from the Venetian republic. The documents concerning its history were published in Achille Deville, Comptes des dépenses de la construction du Château de Gaillon, 2 vols (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1850); for its discussion see Naomi Miller, French Renaissance fountains (New York and London: Garland, 1977), pp. 67–72. Its lower tazza is preserved on the upper terrace of the Château de la Rochefoucauld in Charentes. 10. The imposing ‘candelabrum’ fountains represented in the drawings by Jacopo Bellini similarly belong to this category. Note the horse drinking water from the shallow receiving basin of the fountain in the Feast of Herod from Bellini's Libro dei disegni (c. 1430–60), now in the Louvre (RF1484, fols 15v–16r). 11. In the words of John Pope‐Hennessy, ‘only in the sixteenth century did the fountain come to be accepted as an art form in its own right’. John Pope‐Hennessy, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture (An Introduction to Italian Sculpture, III), 4th edition (London: Phaedon, 1996), p. 217. 12. Cf. Wiles 1933, pp. 22–23. 13. ‘In the design of Florentine fountains, the water plays only a minor part, seldom receiving a monumental treatment. … Yet the effect of the whole is seldom greatly impaired by the lack of water, so slight is the part which it plays in the design, so great the emphasis on sculpture’ (Wiles 1933, pp. 19–20). 14. Wiles 1933, pp. 23–24. 15. Wiles 1933, pp. 19, 24, 52. 16. Cf. Wiles 1933, p. 31. 17. In her own words, ‘the vertical lines and ornate decoration of this type are best suited to the villa, where the form apparently originated’ (Wiles 1933, p. 27). 18. Wiles 1933, p. 22. Lomazzo's praise for Montorsoli's fountain was later echoed by Bernard Berenson, who referred to it as ‘perhaps the most wonderful [fountain] of its kind in Italy’. Bernard Berenson, The Passionate Sightseer (London: Thames & Hudson, 1960), p. 68. 19. Wiles 1933, p. 27. 20. Wiles 1933, pp. 27, 52–53. 21. As Wiles puts it, ‘the strong contrasts of the white and variegated marbles and the profusion of fantastic sea creatures seem out of place in the centre of a city piazza’ (Wiles 1933, p. 27). The idea that the Fountain of Orion derived from the design of Tribolo's fountains had been suggested by Marcel Reymond: ‘Montorsoli reprend le motif en hauteur créé par Tribolo, le motif de vasques superposées, séparées par de grands fûts ornés de figures et surmontés dans le haut par une statue; et il complète l’idée de Tribolo en disposant dans le bas un grand bassin décoré de reliefs et de statues colossales’. Marcel Reymond, La sculpture florentine. Le XVIe siècle et les successeurs de l’École Florentine (Florence: Alinari, 1900), pp. 131–132. 22. Wiles 1933, figures 42 (Alinari) and 50 (Brogi). Owing to the rarity of photographs that show these fountains playing, the reconstruction of their original water effects has to rely on the analysis of their basins and statuary. 23. The eight mascheroni on the lower tazza, according to the contract of 14 December 1506, were executed by Agostino Solari, who was also responsible for the figure of St John the Baptist that crowned the shaft. Cf. Federigo Alizeri, Notizie dei professori del disegno in Liguria dalle origini al secolo XVI, 6 vols (Genoa: Sambolino, 1870–80), IV, pp. 315–316. Although the contract specifies eight ‘lion heads’, some of these mascheroni were given distinctly human features. 24. Cf. the nineteenth‐century photograph of this fountain published in Arduino Colasanti, Le fontane d’Italia (Milan and Rome: Bestetti & Tumminelli, 1926), figure on p. 201. According to the journal of the seventeenth‐century English traveller John Evelyn, this cascade could be seen from the principal entrance to the Palazzo Pitti. The diary of John Evelyn, edited by E. S. de Beer, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), II, p. 186. Evelyn's comment appears to be based on the description of the Fountain of the Artichoke by Balthazar de Monconys rather than on his personal observations. 25. Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron (Turin: Utet, 2003), p. 267. Boccaccio's explanation of how overflowing water was not wasted, but carefully directed into brooks for its maximal utilization, closely parallels Palladio's description of its management in the Villa Barbaro at Maser. 26. Montaigne, for example, noted such a grotto in the garden of the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola: ‘Au‐dehors, il est aussi beaucoup de belles choses dignes d’être vues, et entre autres, une grotte d’où, l’eau s’élançant avec art dans un petit lac, représente à la vue et à l’ouïe la chute d’une pluie très naturelle’. Michel de Montaigne, Journal de voyage, edited by Fausta Garavini (Paris: Gallimard, 1983), p. 348. 27. Thus, Federico Zucchari described the Jardín de la Isla in Aranjuez as a place ‘con fontane, grotte, secreti e burle da rinfrescar Dame e Signori’ (Raggvaglio di Frederico Zuccaro dell’Escuriale, di Arangouis e di Tolledo, published in J. Domínguez Bordona, ‘Federico Zuccaro en España’, Archivio Español de Arte y Arqueología, VII, 1927, p. 84; I am grateful to Rosemarie Mulcahy for bringing this text to my attention). Cf. Anton Francesco Doni: ‘In Napoli i signori hanno per usanza di cavalcare e pigliare la sera il fresco, quando quei caldi gli assaltano; in Roma si stanno per le fresche vigne e per le posticcie fontane a ricriarsi’. Anton Francesco Doni, I marmi, edited by Pietro Fanfani, 2 vols (Florence: Barbera, 1863), I, p. 8. 28. Cf. Giorgio Vasari, Le Opere, edited by Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols (Florence: Sansoni, 1906), VI, p. 80. 29. Wiles saw this practice as a consequence of the poor water supply in Florence, which encouraged fountain designers to provide adequate display for the limited water resources at their disposal. The use of numerous minor jets in the design of Tribolo's Fountain of Hercules, where water supply was sufficient, presented, in her opinion, an unnecessary tribute to this traditional approach (Wiles 1933, p. 24). 30. In the urban context, air was usually cooled by long upward jets (zampilli); their sanitary significance in the design of Bartolomeo Ammannati's Fountain of Neptune in Florence (1561–75) was noted by Francesco Bocchi: ‘Surgono in alto molti zampilli, i quali alla vista altrui in ogni tempo appariscono vaghi; ma quando da’ razzi del sole molto è l’aria calda divenuta, sono per l’uso comune di refrigerio, et di salute’. Francesco Bocchi, Le bellezze della città di Firenze (Florence: Sermartelli, 1591), p. 35. 31. The concern with providing simultaneous access to different types of water resources is reflected in the instructions given by Cosimo I de’ Medici regarding the design of the fountain in Piazza della Signoria in Florence, begun by Baccio Bandinelli and later executed by Bartolomeo Ammannati: ‘Al memoriale del Cavaliere Bandinello [Baccio Bandinelli] mandatomi di V. S. R. [Pierfrancesco Riccio] ha risposto S. Ex.a [Cosimo I] che quella fonte ha essere tale, che le bestie v’habbino et possino arrivare, et le persone piglian l’acqua commodamente, quanto la casca’. Florence, Archivio di Stato, Mediceo del Principato, 1176, insert 1, fol. 8r (Iacopo Guidi to Pierfrancesco Riccio, 11 September 1550). 32. For the important role of fountains during fire emergencies, see Fabio Bargagli Petrucci, Le fonti di Siena e i loro acquedotti: note storiche delle origini fino al 1555, 2 vols (Siena: Olschki, 1906), I, pp. 52–58. 33. Cf. Wiles 1933, p. 28. 34. Elizabeth Blair MacDougall, Fountains, Statues, and Flowers: Studies in Italian Gardens of the 16th and 17th Centuries (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1994), p. 61. 35. Wiles 1933, p. 28. 36. Wiles 1933, pp. 27–28. 37. Wiles regarded all of these jets as purely decorative, devoid of practical meaning: ‘The abundant water supply for this fountain was divided among many jets, which issued from the mouths of the dolphins under the putti and naiads, from hideous masks carved on their basins, from four fishes placed within the great basins, through the urns of the river gods, and from the eight masks set under the sea monsters, into the little water receptacles’ (Wiles 1933, p. 29). 38. For the traditional ‘aesthetic’ reading of the Fountain of Orion in terms of the distribution and meaning of its sculptural decoration, see Karl Möseneder, Montorsoli. Die Brunner (Mittenwald: Mäander, 1979), pp. 59–89; Sheila ffolliott, Civic sculpture in the Renaissance: Montorsoli's fountains at Messina (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1984), pp. 46–61; and Birgit Laschke, Fra Giovan Angelo Montorsoli: Ein Florentiner Bildhauer des 16. Jarhunderts (Berlin: Mann, 1993), pp. 92–98. 39. Vasari‐Milanesi, V, pp. 632–633. 40. Another civic fountain, where a large tazza raised on a high foot served as the main water receptacle, is represented in the late fifteenth‐century view of an ideal city in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (accession n. 37.677). Wiles grouped such fountains under the ‘cylix’ type, finding their form analogous to the bowl‐shaped ancient Greek vase; she assumed, however, that they were usually small in size and primarily used in garden or domestic settings (Wiles 1933, pp. 10, 59). 41. The records of payment for the execution and installation of these mascheroni were published in E. Müntz, Le arts à la cour des Papes Innocent VIII, Alexandre VI, Pie III (1484–1503) (Paris: Leroux, 1898), pp. 196–199. Cesare D'Onofrio's reference to four bullheads decorating the fountain presumably derives from misreading two mentions of the payment for ‘duorum boum’ as two separate payments. Cf. Cesare D'Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma (Rome: Staderini, 1957), pp. 161–162. 42. Cf. D'Onofrio (as in note 41), p. 162. This fountain is clearly visible in the drawing of Piazza San Pietro (c. 1535) by Marten van Heemskerck in Vienna, Albertina (inventory n. 13.681), with thin projecting lines indicating water issuing from the two mascheroni and the four vases held by the putti. For illustration, see Christian Hülsen and Hermann Egger, Die römischen Skitzzenbücher von Marten van Heemskerck, 2 vols (Berlin: Bard, 1913–16), II, pl. 130. 43. Cf. Wiles 1933, p. 47; ffolliott (as in note 38), p. 139. 44. Pirro Ligorio, ‘Trattato di alcune cose appartenente alla nobiltà dell’antiche arti … ’, published in Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, edited by Paola Barocchi, 3 vols (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1973), II, pp. 1423–1424. Ligorio commented on the proposal for a garden fountain with three tiered basins, the uppermost of which carried a series of mascheroni in the form of heads of rams (castroni), decorated with figures of satyrs and turtles. For the dating of Ligorio's treatise, see David Coffin, ‘Pirro Ligorio on the nobility of the arts’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXVII, 1964, p. 192. 45. Cf. Colasanti (as in note 24), figure on p. 119. For the history of this fountain, see Simonetta Valtieri, ‘La Fontana di Piazza della Rocca: un segno sulla “viabilità principale” nella Viterbo del “500”’, Peperino, I, 1974, pp. 11–14, 21–22. 46. The idea that fountains with overflowing basins originated in Rome and were introduced into Florence by Tribolo, suggested by Detlef Heikamp, finds no factual support. Cf. Detlef Heikamp, ‘La Fontana del Nettuno in Piazza della Signoria e le sue acque’, in Bartolomeo Ammannati, scultore e architetto, 1511–1592, edited by Niccolò Rosselli del Turco and Federica Salvi (Florence: Alinea, 1995), p. 22. Although overflowing basins were occasionally included as decorative elements in the design of civic fountains of the Middle Ages (as in the case of the upper bronze tazza of the Fontana Maggiore in Perugia), they became common in Rome only towards the end of the sixteenth century in the fountains by Giacomo della Porta (c. 1533–1602) and Carlo Maderno (1556–1629). 47. Müntz (as in note 41), p. 90; Howard Hibbard, Carlo Maderno and Roman architecture, 1580–1630 (London: Zwemmer, 1971), p. 200. 48. In 1667, Bernini dismantled Maderno's fountain, moving it, with minor alterations, into a more central location in Piazza San Pietro; its close replica was erected on the opposite side of the square. In the words of Bernini's assistant Carlo Fontana, the additional 300 once of water required for this project were intended ‘for the decoration’ (ornamento) of this other fountain. Carlo Fontana, Utilissimo trattato dell’acque correnti (Rome: Buagni, 1696), p. 179. 49. For the reconstruction of the original design of the fountain commissioned by Don Luis, see my PhD thesis: Francesco Camilliani and the Florentine Garden of Don Luigi di Toledo: A Study of Fountain Production and Consumption in the Third Quarter of the 16th Century, Trinity College Dublin, 2002. 50. ‘Questa bellissima fonte è come un giardino del palagio del senato’. Vincenzo di Giovanni, Palermo restaurato, edited by Mario Giorgianni and Antonio Santamaura (Palermo: Sellerio, 1989), p. 141. 51. There is evidence that in the sixteenth century fountains with perforated tazze were distinguished into a separate category as fontane a pìspini; a fountain of this name was erected in Siena in 1534. Bargagli Petrucci (as in note 32), I, pp. 322–323. 52. ‘Quella [fontana] poi del Sanese ne la Strada del Popolo, se io no la riveggio, non m’affido di scrivere, tanto più che non l’ho mai veduta gettare, e non so le vie de l’acqua’. Annibal Caro, Opere, edited by Stefano Jacomuzzi (Turin: Utet, 1974), p. 613; from Caro's letter to Giovanni Guidiccioni, 13 July 1538.