Maso Tommasoii Finiguerra (1426–1464) was an Italian
goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Nowadays they mainly specialize in jewelry-making but historically, goldsmiths have also made silverware, platters, goblets, decorative and servicea ...
,
niellist,
draftsman
A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman or drafting technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawings or plans for ...
, and
engraver working in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
, who was incorrectly described by
Giorgio Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...
as the inventor of
engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...
as a
printmaking technique. This made him a crucial figure in the history of
old master prints and remained widely believed until the early twentieth century. However, it was gradually realised that Vasari's view, like many of his assertions as to the origins of technical advances, could not be sustained. Typically, Vasari had overstated the importance of a fellow-Florentine, and a fellow-Italian, since it is now clear that engraving developed in Germany before Italy.
Vasari only ever credited him with paper impressions of his nielli, rather than engravings made from special printing-plates, in the usual sense of the word; in fact there probably never were any such engravings by him. Although he clearly was an important artist of his time, few surviving works, and no surviving prints, can now be definitely attributed to him, so scholarly interest in him has greatly reduced. Over 100 drawings in the
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...
, and others elsewhere, remain attributed to him.
He died in his late thirties, and his influence lived after him in the works of the early Florentine engravers and drawings related to them, especially the shadowy figure of
Baccio Baldini, who Vasari associates with him.
Career
He was the son of Antonio, and grandson of Tommaso Finiguerra or Finiguerri, both goldsmiths of Florence, and was born in Santa Lucia d'Ognissanti in 1426. He worked with his family as a goldsmith and was early distinguished for his work in
niello
Niello is a black mixture, usually of sulphur, copper, silver, and lead, used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal, especially silver. It is added as a powder or paste, then fired until it melts or at least softens, and flows or is pushed ...
. In 1449, there is a note of a sulfur cast from a niello of his workmanship being handed over by the painter
Alessio Baldovinetti to a customer in payment or exchange for a dagger. In 1452 Maso delivered and was paid for a niellated silver
pax
Pax or PAX may refer to:
Peace
* Peace (Latin: ''pax'')
** Pax (goddess), the Roman goddess of peace
** Pax, a truce term
* Pax (liturgy), a salutation in Catholic and Lutheran religious services
* Pax (liturgical object), an object formerly ki ...
commissioned for the
Florence Baptistery
The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John ( it, Battistero di San Giovanni), is a religious building in Florence, Italy, and has the status of a minor basilica. The octagonal baptistery stands in both the Piazza del D ...
by the
Arte di Calimala
The Arte di Calimala, the guild of the cloth finishers and merchants in foreign cloth, was one of the greater guilds of Florence, the ''Arti Maggiori'', who arrogated to themselves the civic power of the Republic of Florence during the Late Middle ...
or cloth merchant's
guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
.
By 1457 he had left his father's workshop and partnered with the goldsmith
Piero di Bartolommeo di Sail, who worked with
Antonio del Pollaiuolo
Antonio del Pollaiuolo ( , , ; 17 January 1429/14334 February 1498), also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo (also spelled Pollaiolo), was an Italian painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith during the Italian Rena ...
, when the firm had an order for a pair of silver candlesticks for the church of San Jacopo at
Pistoia. In 1459 in the
Palazzo Rucellai
Palazzo Rucellai is a palatial fifteenth-century townhouse on the Via della Vigna Nuova in Florence, Italy. The Rucellai Palace is believed by most scholars to have been designed for Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai by Leon Battista Alberti betwe ...
, artworks by Finiguerra are annotated as belonging to
Giovanni Rucellai. In 1462 he is recorded as having supplied another wealthy Florentine,
Cino di Filippo Rinuccini, with waist buckles, and in the years next following with forks and spoons for christening presents. In 1463 he drew cartoons, the heads of which were colored by
Alessio Baldovinetti, for five or more figures for the sacristy of
Florence Cathedral, which was being decorated in
intarsia
Intarsia is a form of wood inlaying that is similar to marquetry. The start of the practice dates from before the seventh century AD. The technique of intarsia inlays sections of wood (at times with contrasting ivory or bone, or mother-of-pear ...
or wood inlay by a group of artists with
Giuliano da Maiano
Giuliano da Maiano (1432–1490) was an Italian architect, intarsia-worker, and sculptor, the elder brother of Benedetto da Maiano, with whom he often collaborated.
Biography
He was born in the village of Maiano, near Fiesole, where his fathe ...
at their head. On 4 December 1464 Maso Finiguerra made his will, and died shortly afterwards.
Surviving works
![Maso finiguerra, crocifissione, 1460-64 ca](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Maso_finiguerra%2C_crocifissione%2C_1460-64_ca._%28bargello%29.JPG)
The only fully documented works by Finiguerra which survive are the
intarsia
Intarsia is a form of wood inlaying that is similar to marquetry. The start of the practice dates from before the seventh century AD. The technique of intarsia inlays sections of wood (at times with contrasting ivory or bone, or mother-of-pear ...
figures for the cathedral, over half life-size, executed from his cartoons for the sacristy. But these seems so fully in the style of Antonio del Pollaiuolo that Konrad Oberhauser thought it "extremely doubtful" that he actually designed them himself. But he is thought to be responsible for a number of other works: a few nielli, and sulphur casts from them and others, and over a hundred drawings.
Drawings
Much the largest group of drawings is in the
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...
, some of which are inscribed "Maso Finiguerra" in a seventeenth-century writing, probably by
Filippo Baldinucci, curator of the Medici collections. These depict many figures of the studio and the street, to all appearance members of the artists own family and workshop, drawn direct from life, and used "as a repository of figural ideas that could be used by Finiguerra to speed up the compositional process". The Uffizi group includes 14 studies of birds and animals, some apparently copied from other drawings, such as a rather stylized
cockerel
The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...
.
There are two large drawings on
vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...
(both 28 x 41 cm, plus change) which show scenes from the
Old Testament and are crowded with figures. These are ''Moses on Mount Sinai, and the Brazen Serpent below'' in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
, and ''The Flood'' in the
Kunsthalle, Hamburg. These were apparently intended as finished artworks, though both were later copied as engravings by
Francesco Rosselli.
The drawings can be dated from their style and the contemporary costumes to the 1450s up to Finiguerra's death in 1464. They agree strictly with the accounts of Finiguerra's drawings left us by Vasari and Baldinucci, and disagree in no respect with the character of the inlaid figures of the sacristy. That he was probably also an engraver in niello appears from the fact that figures from the Uflizi series of drawings are repeated among the rare anonymous Florentine niello prints of the time (the chief collection of which, formerly belonging to the marquis of Salamanca, is now in
Edmond de Rothschild
Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild (Hebrew: הברון אברהם אדמונד בנימין ג'יימס רוטשילד - ''HaBaron Avraham Edmond Binyamin Ya'akov Rotshield''; 19 August 1845 – 2 November 1934) was a French memb ...
Collection at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
).
The ''
Florentine Picture-Chronicle'' was attributed to Finiguerra when first published in 1893, by
Sidney Colvin
Sir Sidney Colvin (18 June 1845 – 11 May 1927) was a British curator and literary and art critic, part of the illustrious Anglo-Indian Colvin family. He is primarily remembered for his friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson.
Family and early ...
, but is now more often attributed to
Baccio Baldini, or an artist of his circle. This album is an unusual and ambitious attempt at a "pictorial chronicle of the world", which was never completed. The drawings are in black chalk, then ink and usually wash.
Nielli and casts
The attribution of a group of nielli, in particular some in the
Bargello
The Bargello, also known as the Palazzo del Bargello, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, or Palazzo del Popolo (Palace of the People), was a former barracks and prison, now an art museum, in Florence, Italy.
Terminology
The word ''bargello'' appears ...
, is complicated by problems arising from the matching up of documentary records, and the remarks of Vasari and
Benvenuto Cellini, with the surviving works. As mentioned above, in 1452 Maso made a niello silver
pax
Pax or PAX may refer to:
Peace
* Peace (Latin: ''pax'')
** Pax (goddess), the Roman goddess of peace
** Pax, a truce term
* Pax (liturgy), a salutation in Catholic and Lutheran religious services
* Pax (liturgical object), an object formerly ki ...
for the
Florence Baptistery
The Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John ( it, Battistero di San Giovanni), is a religious building in Florence, Italy, and has the status of a minor basilica. The octagonal baptistery stands in both the Piazza del D ...
, commissioned by the
Arte di Calimala
The Arte di Calimala, the guild of the cloth finishers and merchants in foreign cloth, was one of the greater guilds of Florence, the ''Arti Maggiori'', who arrogated to themselves the civic power of the Republic of Florence during the Late Middle ...
. In 1455 the guild ordered a second pax from another goldsmith, Matteo Dei. The subject of neither piece is known from the records. Two paxes with matching frames in the Bargello museum are thought to come from the baptistry, but their styles are considered too different to be by the same artist. One, of the ''
Coronation of the Virgin'' is generally thought superior in quality and assigned to Finiguerra. The other shows a ''Crucifixion'', and is often thought to be Dei's piece of 1456.
The problem arises because Cellini praises a pax by Finiguerra with a ''Crucifixion'' scene with horses, and Vasari praises one with scenes of the
Passion of Christ
In Christianity, the Passion (from the Latin verb ''patior, passus sum''; "to suffer, bear, endure", from which also "patience, patient", etc.) is the short final period in the life of Jesus Christ.
Depending on one's views, the "Passion" m ...
. Other surviving paxes are enlisted to match these descriptions, while still forming a group with a sufficiently consistent style. Some of the nielli have surviving sulphur casts, which might strengthen the association with Finiguerra.
Legacy
These documented facts are supplemented by several writers. By his contemporaries he is praised for niellos by the Florentine
Filarete
Antonio di Pietro Aver(u)lino (; – ), known as Filarete (; from grc, φιλάρετος, meaning "lover of excellence"), was a Florentine Renaissance architect, sculptor, medallist, and architectural theorist. He is perhaps best remembered for ...
and the
Bolognese poet A.M. Salimbeni.
[Landau, 98–99; Levinson, 1] In the generations following
Baccio Bandinelli
Baccio Bandinelli (also called Bartolommeo Brandini; 12 November 1493 – shortly before 7 February 1560), was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, draughtsman, and painter.
Biography
Bandinelli was the son of a prominent Florentine goldsmith, ...
said Finiguerra was among the young artists under
Lorenzo Ghiberti
Lorenzo Ghiberti (, , ; 1378 – 1 December 1455), born Lorenzo di Bartolo, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Florence, a key figure in the Early Renaissance, best known as the creator of two sets of bronze doors of the Florence Baptister ...
working on the famous gates of the
Baptistery, Florence;
Benvenuto Cellini said he was the finest master of his day in niello engraving, and that his masterpiece was a pax of the Crucifixion in the baptistery of St. John; that being no great draftsman, he in most cases, including that of the above-mentioned pax, worked from drawings by
Antonio del Pollaiuolo
Antonio del Pollaiuolo ( , , ; 17 January 1429/14334 February 1498), also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo (also spelled Pollaiolo), was an Italian painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith during the Italian Rena ...
.
Vasari
Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...
, on the other hand, though saying that Finiguerra was an inferior draughtsman to Pollaiuolo, mentions a number of original drawings by him as existing in Vasari's own collection, with figures both draped and nude, and histories drawn in watercolor. Vasari's account was confirmed and amplified in the next century by Baldinucci, who says that he has seen many drawings by Finiguerra in the manner of
Masaccio; adding that Maso was beaten by Pollaiuolo in competition for the reliefs of the great silver altar-table commission by the merchants guild for the baptistery of St. John (this famous work is now preserved in the
Opera del Duomo).
Zani's claims
In the last years of the 18th century, Vasari's account of Finiguerra's invention was held to have received a decisive and startling confirmation under the following circumstances. There was in the Baptistery at Florence (now in the
Bargello
The Bargello, also known as the Palazzo del Bargello, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, or Palazzo del Popolo (Palace of the People), was a former barracks and prison, now an art museum, in Florence, Italy.
Terminology
The word ''bargello'' appears ...
) a beautiful 15th-century niello pax of the
Coronation of the Virgin. The Abate Gori, a connoisseur of the mid-century, had claimed this conjecturally for the work of Finiguerra; a later and still more enthusiastic virtuoso, the Abate Zani, discovered first, in the collection of Count Seratti at
Ligorno, a sulfur cast from the very same niello (cast now in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
), and then, in the
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, a paper impression corresponding to both. Here, then, he proclaimed, was the actual material first fruit of Finiguerra's invention and proof positive of Vasari's accuracy.
Zani's famous discovery is now discredited among serious students. For one, the art of printing from engraved copperplates had been known in Germany and in Italy for years prior to the date of Finiguerra's alleged invention. For another, Finiguerra's pax for the baptistery, if Cellini is to be trusted, represented not a Coronation of the Virgin but a
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagi ...
. In the next place, its recorded weight does not at all agree with that of the pax claimed by Gori and Zani to be his. Again, and perhaps this is the strongest argument of any, all authentic records agree in representing Finiguerra as a close associate in art and business of
Antonio del Pollaiuolo
Antonio del Pollaiuolo ( , , ; 17 January 1429/14334 February 1498), also known as Antonio di Jacopo Pollaiuolo or Antonio Pollaiuolo (also spelled Pollaiolo), was an Italian painter, sculptor, engraver, and goldsmith during the Italian Rena ...
. Now nothing is more marked than the special style of Pollaiuolo and his group; and nothing is more unlike it than the style of the Coronation pax, the designer of which must obviously have been trained in quite a different school, namely that of
Filippo Lippi.
Notes
References
*
*Chapman, Hugo, in Chapman, Hugo, and Faietti, Marzia, ''Fra Angelico to Leonardo: Italian Renaissance Drawings'', 2010, British Museum Press,
*Landau, David, in Landau, David, and Parshall, Peter. ''The Renaissance Print'', Yale, 1996,
*Levinson, Jay A. (ed. - entries by Konrad Oberhuber) ''Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art'', National Gallery of Art, Washington (Catalogue), 1973, LOC 7379624
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finiguerra, Maso
1426 births
1464 deaths
Artists from Florence
Italian goldsmiths
Italian engravers
15th-century engravers