Tazzi Aldobrandini

Tazzi are richly decorated flat bowls with high legs. Vessels of this form (probably borrowed from ancient Greek kiliks ) were known in Italy from the 15th century and were intended for wine or - later and outside of Italy - for fruits or sweets ^[1] . Each of the bowls of Aldobrandini is decorated with a full-height human figure rising in the center, depicting one of the ancient Roman rulers. The inner surface of each tazza is decorated with four relief scenes from the life of the corresponding emperor.

The craftsmanship with which the figures and the decoration of the bowls were made is outstanding for its time and is described by experts as “the most impressive separate sample of Italian and, possibly, pan-European jewelry work of the 16th century” ^[2] and “one of the most impressive preserved silver objects of the 16th century” ^[3] . Such luxuriously executed vessels were probably intended to decorate the table in especially solemn occasions.

Each bowl has a height of 41 cm (16 inches) and consists of prefabricated elements (base, mount, directly bowl-plate, pedestal and figurine of the emperor). Some of the bowls are decorated with the coat of arms of the genus Aldobrandini, while the location of the coat of arms in the lower part of the product indicates that the Tats were not originally ordered by representatives of this family, but were purchased by them later.

• Details of the decor of Tazza Vitellius:
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The time and place of making the bowls is not known for certain. Initially, it was assumed that they could be made by the outstanding Italian sculptor and jeweler Benvenuto Cellini , however, at present, such attribution has been refused. Further suggestions were made that Tatsans could be made by a craftsman from the Netherlands or, possibly, from German Augsburg or Nuremberg , during his work in Italy. Later studies are inclined to the version that the bowls were made in the southern Netherlands for a noble patron of the Habsburg family (possibly for Albrecht VII of Austria ) at the end of the 16th century and were acquired by a representative of the Aldobrandini family no later than 1603 ^[4] . The individual characteristics of the bowls indicate that a team of silver craftsmen was involved in the manufacture.

The Tazzians were in the possession of the Aldobrandini family until 1769, after which they transferred to the Borghese family. The bowls probably remained in Italy until Napoleon conquered Italy in 1797. However, in the first quarter of the 19th century, they ended up in London at the store of the Kensington Lewis silver merchant ^[5] . In 1834, the Tatsans, attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, were sold to the collection of Charlie Skarisbrick (1801-1860) for 1000 guineas . A year after his death, the bowls were purchased for 1200 guineas by Richard Attenborough, at that time all twelve bowls were in a single set and the original form.

In the 1860s, originally silver bowls were gilded. A little later, in the second half of the XIX century, the bowls were dismantled, in six of them the bases were replaced with more magnificent ones, also made in the XVI century, but probably in Spain. The kit was divided, individual bowls fell into the hands of different owners in different countries. Due to the prefabricated design of the bowls, by the end of the 19th century, the emperor’s figures and the original bowls were mixed up, which is why six of the twelve bowls are currently crowned with “not their own” figure, and the figure and the base were completely lost at Titus’s bowl. Only one of the twelve bowls - the Tazza Claudius - was preserved in its original form (not counting the gilding), with the original base and the correct figure. Bowls are kept in various museums around the world.

• The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery , The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Yale University Press, ISBN 9781588396396
• The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery , Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017, ISBN 1588396398 , ISBN 9781588396396