Apollonio di Giovanni ( Italian: Apollonio di Giovanni ; 1415/17, Florence - 1465, Florence ) - Italian artist.
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Biography and Creativity
The exact date of birth of Apollonio di Giovanni is unknown. It is also unknown where he studied the basics of painting craft. Researchers associate his formation as an artist with the names of such masters of applied painting as Bartolomeo di Fruozino (c. 1366-1441) and Battista di Biagio Sanguigny (1393-1451). The name Apollonio first appears in archival documents in 1442 - he is mentioned as a member of the Florentine Guild of Doctors and Pharmacists (Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali), which included artists. In 1443, Apollonio di Giovanni joined the brotherhood of St. Luke - an association of Florentine artists. In 1446, he organized a joint art workshop with Marco del Buono , which specialized in the production of a cash register - painted wedding chests, trays for women in childbirth (the so-called desco da parto), paintings, photographs, portraits, small icons for home use, and other items household goods that adorned the interiors of wealthy citizens. Companions also worked in the mural technique. In this joint venture, the artist continued to work until his death in 1465.
Due to the fact that the account book of this workshop, known as Libro di Bottega (although in a copy rewritten in the 17th century), has been preserved, scientists have an idea of what work was done in it, for which customers and at what prices. The book describes the activities of the enterprise from 1446 to 1463, but, unfortunately, has big gaps, since the scribe, in all likelihood, was interested not so much in the activities of the workshop as the genealogy of customers (many household items were ordered in Florence of the 15th century in connection with important events - birth of a child or a wedding). Another source of information about the Apollonio di Giovanni company is the consumables book of Bernardo di Stoldo Ranieri, who ordered a set of furniture there in preparation for the wedding. Thanks to these records, it is known that Apollonio di Giovanni and Marco del Buono during their joint work from 1446 to 1462 produced 166 pairs of cash drawers (painted chests-cash drawers, as a rule, were made for the wedding by a couple - for the groom and the bride), and their clients were the most famous families of Florence: the Medici , Rucellai , Gvichchardini , Benchi , Ginori , Strozzi and others, that is, bankers, notaries, merchants and other wealthy citizens of Florence. In the mid-15th century, their workshop was Florence's most prosperous enterprise for the manufacture of such products.
A scientific study of the work of Apollonio di Giovanni began in 1944, when Wolfgang Stekhov determined that two boxes of Xerxes' Invasion of Greece (Allen Memorial Museum of Art, Oberlin, Ohio) and the Victory and Triumph of the Greeks (now lost) were ordered workshop of Apollonio and Marco in 1461 for the wedding of Francesco di Pagolo Vettori and daughter of Giovanni Rucellai . This discovery made possible the stylistic identification of other works of Apollonio di Giovanni, which before that did not have a clear attribution. They were attributed to various anonymous masters: “Master Virgil”, “Master Cassone Jarvsa”, “Master of the Tournament on Santa Croce Square”, “Master Dido” and “employee of Pesellino ”. Most of them have no accurate dating; miniatures for Dante and the Triumphs of Petrarch - 1442, the box office from Oberlin - 1461, and the front panel for the box box made for the wedding of Pazzi and Borromei in the same 1461 have a specific reference to the date. (stored at Indiana University Museum of Art, Bloomington). Another panel from the cassone chest depicting putti and the coat of arms of the Del Bene family (Longy Foundation, Florence) can be identified as ordered in 1450. This is not enough to build a solid chronology of the work of Apollonio di Giovanni, so it is rather conditional. The matter is further aggravated by the fact that the box office is painted in a different style - in all likelihood, various hired artists were used in the workshop. Responsible for the artistic style of the joint production, researchers consider Apollonio di Giovanni. All attempts to separate the hand of one of the co-authors from the hand of the other were unsuccessful.
The shipwreck of Aeneas. Cassone. 1450-1460, Yale University Art Gallery.
Aeneas in Carthage. Cassone. OK. 1450, Yale University Art Gallery.
The Adventures of Ulysses. Part 1, Cassone. Wawel, Castello Real.
The Adventures of Ulysses. Part 2 Cassone. Wawel, Castello Real.
Darius marching to the battle of Issus. Cassone. 1450-1455, State. Museum, Amsterdam.
The generosity of Scipio. Cassone. OK. 1463-1465, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Of the two owners of the workshop, Apollonio di Giovanni was the most famous. Researchers attribute to him a leading role in the affairs of the enterprise. Between 1458 and 1464, the poet Ugolino Verino composed poems in Latin in which he extols Apollonio, referring to him as “Tuscan Apelles ”. In the poetry of Flametta, Verino describes a picture that depicted scenes from Aeneid (Ernst Gombrich identified it in 1955 with two panel panels from the Yale University Art Gallery). From the poem it follows that the interpretations of ancient history, which embodied in his works of Apollonio di Giovanni, among the humanist scientists of Florence, had a certain value. Flametta was dedicated to Giovanni Ruccellai, patron of Leon Battista Alberti. The personal relationship between Apollonio and Ruccellai testifies to the attractiveness of his paintings with scenes of ancient history for the widely educated and humanistically oriented representatives of the upper middle class of Florence. In all likelihood, the artist was a very well-read, broad-minded person. Despite the fact that Apollonio did not pave new ways in art, and was mainly engaged, in fact, in applied painting, his work was a significant contribution to the spiritual life of Florence in the mid-15th century.
On August 27, 1465, Apollonio di Giovanni made a will, in which he wrote all his property to Antonio, the son of his companion Marco del Buono. It is believed that Antonio was a student of Apollonio di Giovanni and completed some of the works that he left unfinished due to the disease. The exact date of the death of the artist is not known.
Artwork
Apollonio di Giovanni has worked in a wide variety of genres and materials. He created miniatures for books, painted the box office and trays for women in childbirth with secular themes, created works on religious themes - as a rule, these were images for private rooms. The largest-sized work in his catalog is the altar "Trinity with Saints Kozma, Damian, Julian, Sebastian and Francis" (220x134 cm; Academy Gallery, Florence). On the altar predella you can see the coat of arms of the Bruni d'Arezzo family - the work was commissioned by Filippo di Francesco Tornabuoni, brother of the more famous Giovanni Tornabuoni - the banker Medici, and Maddalena di Donato Bruni, granddaughter of Messer Leonardo, Chancellor of the Florentine Republic. The name of one of the saints depicted on the altar was probably the homonym of their son (the date of his birth is not known, but the work must have been ordered on this occasion by this date). Researchers see the influence of Pesellino , Andrea del Castagno and Paolo Uccello in the painting of the altar .
The remaining prayer images are more modest in size. These are small “Trinity”, scenes of the Crucifixion of Christ and images of the Madonna and Child, which include at least six pieces. The main body of his work is made up of painted panels of chest-boxes and trays for women in labor. The theme of these works was mostly secular: Triumphs, plots from ancient history. Sometimes moralizing Old Testament stories were used, such as the story of Susanna.
Painted trays for women in childbirth were a special kind of product that was ordered for the child's birthday. They brought food to the mother in bed, later on they decorated the interior of the house. A variety of subjects were depicted on trays, mainly related in some way to the wish for a healthy and successful baby, most often a boy. At that time, it was believed that the contemplation of images contributes to this, in connection with which on trays you can sometimes see fighting young men, little robes who urinate (this symbolized the desire for a “flow of goods” in the future). It is these kids that can be seen on the back of a tray from the Museum of Art of North Carolina, made in the workshop of Apollonio. The Triumph of Chastity is written on its front side in detail illustrating Petrarch's poem The Triumphs . “Triumphs” was perhaps the most popular theme of murals as long as the fashion for trays for women in labor kept on. Apollonio's two most famous works in this genre (Victoria and Albert Museum; National Gallery, London) are also dedicated to the theme of Triumphs.
The Triumph of Chastity. Tray painting, side A, 1450-60, Museum of Art of the North. Carolina, Reilly.
Naked boys with poppy heads. Tray painting, side B, 1450-60, Museum of Art of the North. Carolina, Reilly.
The triumph of love. 1453-55, Tray Painting, National Gallery, London.
The triumph of love. 1460s, Tray painting. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Portrait of Matteo Olivieri. Washington, National Gallery of Art.
Portrait of the Prickly Salutati. Code thumbnail. Florence, Medicare Laurenzian Library.
There are two portraits in the artist’s catalog (although not all experts share this attribution): one from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, (The male portrait, according to the inscription is shown by Matteo Olivieri), the other from the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk (The male portrait, according to the inscription depicts the son of Matteo Olivieri - Michele). In addition, the Apollonio workshop produced books richly decorated with miniatures. The most famous of them are: “The Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, “Triumphs” by Francesco Petrarch and “Bucolics” by Publius Virgil Maron.
Notes
- ↑ German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 124255140 // General Normative Control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- ↑ RKDartists
- ↑ AGORHA
Bibliography
- W. Stechow , Marco del Buono and Apollonio di Giovanni, cassoni painters, in Bulletin of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, I (1944), pp. 5-21;
- EH Gombrich, Apollonio di Giovanni ..., in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XVIII (1955), pp. 16–34;
- E. Callmann, Apollonio di Giovanni, Oxford 1974;
- A. Garzelli, Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, 1440-1525, I, Firenze 1985, p. 41;
- E. Callmann, Apollonio di Giovanni and painting for the early Renaissance room, in Antichità viva, XXVII (1988);
- AM Bernacchioni, Botteghe di artisti e artigiani nel XV secolo, in G. Trotta, Gli antichi chiassi tra Ponte Vecchio e S. Trinita, Firenze 1992, pp. 210, 212 n. 15;
- M. Haines, Il mondo dello Scheggia: persone e luoghi di una carriera, in L. Bellosi - M. Haines, Lo Scheggia, Firenze-Siena 1999.
- CB Strehlke. Italian paintings 1250-1450. John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 2004, pp. 62–64
- Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008, pp. 129–136, 158–159,
- Da Donatello a Lippi. Officina pratese. Exh. cat. SKIRA, Milano, 2013, pp. 142-147.