Ars Adriatica, No. 1, 2011.
Original scientific paper
New Information about Goldsmith Stefano Piazza
Bojan Goja
; Ministry of Culture, Conservation Department in Zadar for the area of the Zadar County
Abstract
The article presents new information about the life and work of goldsmith Stefano Piazza in Zadar, based on the archival investigation. In 1691 he was commissioned by the fraternity of the Blessed Virgin of the Snow, to make a silver cover for the painting of the Virgin displayed on the marble altar, which the Venetian altar makers Girolamo and Francesco Garzotti made for the fraternity in the church of St Donatus around 1675. The cover was made of silver plate procured in Venice, which Piazza polished and decorated. Neither the painting nor the silver cover have been preserved, and we do not know what they looked like but it is likely that the cover was made in a similar way as other silver painting covers - covering a large part of the painting and with openings for the faces and hands of the figures. Apart from the already known piece of information about the 1691 silver andlestick, it has been established that during 1692 and 1693, Piazza made a series of other metalwork objects, mostly liturgical, for the fraternity of Croatian and Albanian soldiers in the service of the Venetian Republic, dedicated to St Jerome, which gathered in the church of St Simeon for which they had a marble altar made. These objects included a silver figure of Christ, the covers for the parish register, chalice and paten of gilt silver, a silver aspergillus, four silver candlesticks and a pax. Stefano Piazza was a member of the fraternity of St Sylvester (also known as della Pietà e della Misericordia) which had its seat in the Zadar church dedicated to the same saint, and for which the fraternity steward made a list of reliquaries and other silver objects in 1690. He died in Venice on 28 September 1703. His son Francesco (Zadar, 21 December 1684 - 17 September 1721) is also mentioned in the sources as a goldsmith.
Stefano Piazza (? - Venice, 7 September 1703) was probably the son of a north Italian goldsmith Francesco of Stefano, who is mentioned as being in Zadar between 1652 and 1668. Given that according to the available information not a single work of Stefano Piazza has been preserved, nothing can be said about his skills as a craftsman or artistic achievements, but it can be assumed that he was a respectable goldsmith who was frequently contacted by local commissioners because of his skill in making a variety of objects. Other archival data about his life and work are also published here, as well as information about other goldsmiths who worked in Zadar in the late sixteenth and during the seventeenth century.
Keywords
Zadar; goldsmithing; Stefano Piazza; sixteenth century; seventeenth century; eighteenth century
Hrčak ID:
93364
URI
Publication date:
24.11.2011.
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