Original scientific paper
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORK OF NICCOLÒ DI GIOVANNI IN SPLIT AND TROGIR
Radoslav Bužančić
; Konzervatorski odjel u Trogiru
Abstract
Stone fragments of a Renaissance fireplace, built as spolia into the kitchen hearth, have been found in the attic of a house in Kružićeva Street in Split. Judging from the coat of arms, the fireplace must have belonged to one of the palaces of the Split Grisogono family. All that is left undamaged of it is the architrave decorated with moulding and dentils, divided in the facing part with shallow stone frames into three fields. In the central field relief angel shield bearers support a shield on which is a rampant lion with sword, the coat of arms of the Grisogono
family, and in the centre of the other two fields are bas reliefs with the heads of winged angels. Brackets from a Renaissance fireplace were built into the same hearth, holding the architrave, decorated with lion’s head and floral decorations at the side. They belonged to the same unit, of very high quality carving, made in the workshop of a skilled craftsman in the mid-15th century. In the Large Cipiko Palace in Trogir, during the time of conservation treatment, fragments of an architrave of similar fireplace were found, incorporated at a later date into the kitchen hearth at the time of the Baroque rebuilding of the palace. The Trogir fragments want their brackets, which were probably very similar
to those of the Grisogono hearth. The two architraves are very similar. They are of similar dimensions, and the facing part of each is panelled in a similar way with the same shallow stone frames with characteristic slanting that gives a perspective impression of a third dimension. In the centre of the second architrave there was the Cipiko coat of arms with wings that are modelled in the same way as the wings of the angel on the Split fireplace. The two fireplaces must have been produced in the same workshop. The brackets of the Split fireplace with the leonine heads, the putti, with their rounded stomachs, stepping out, holding the shield, the heads of winged angels are motifs that in the same order grace the tomb of Ivan and Šimun Sobota, put up in 1469 in the church of the Trogir Dominicans. The manner of handling the
depiction of the lion’s jaws, eyes, mane, ears and forehead on the Sobota tomb are repeated on the brackets of the fireplace with the only difference in the scale. The hands of the angels with their spread little finger, their little heads and hairstyles show that the sculptor of both fireplaces and the builder of the Sobota tomb was Niccolò di Giovanni the Florentine. The Trogir oeuvre of the Florentine is better known than that of Split. Niccolò worked on the Cipiko palaces from his coming
to Trogir in 1468 to 1470, when Koriolan Cipiko, commander of a trireme from Trogir, left town to go to war. Built as spolia into the parapet of the staircase of the Cipiko palace, two stone fragments attracted attention with their working and decorations. The uncommon
form, the curvature of the surface and the ornamentation with curved foliage and figures of winged putti, two of which are holding the Cipiko coat of arms, started up many questions. The fragments once belonged to a unique symmetrical composition wanting the left hand part, completely harmonious with the right hand part, with a motif of children’s heads peering out among curving acanthus leaves. These two lateral elements were with one end attached to the wall, and like the brackets bent towards the centre bore the central piece with the
Cipiko coat of arms that was set into the dentil and onto the slope like a keystone of a straight arch. The whole construction was like a beam, in plan bent into the form of a shallow trilobe, built at its ends into the surface of the wall. It belonged to an exceptionally luxurious fireplace of the mid-15th century, the hood of which must have been equally richly decorated with frescos or carvings as with the described Dubrovnik fireplaces of the early quattrocento studied in the archival
documents by Cvito Fisković. The hood of the Cipiko fireplace was in the form of the cowling of a trilobe-based cone, which can be seen from the traces of the iron brackets with which it was attached to the beam. Together with Andrija Aleši, Niccolò worked in Split, which is recorded only in one document, of November 30, 1472, when they were paid ninety ducats for works on the pillars of the bell tower of Split cathedral. At the end of the 1970s the Renaissance floor of the Cipci Palace on the Split Peristyle was renovated, Cvito Fisković ascribing it to the workshop of Niccolò di Giovanni. This was a big step forward in the definition of the Florentine’s Split oeuvre, which had
earlier hardly been mentioned at all. The finding of a fireplace with the coat of arms of the Split Grisogono family shows that Niccolò had also worked on other palaces of the Split patricians. The fireplace was moved to Kružićeva Street from the Grisogono Palace at the corner of the Palace and the city Decumanus, the western part of which was
knocked down and built from the ground up in the 19th century. This is shown by one of the windows of this building that after the demolition was moved to the façade of the house in Kružićeva at the same time as the fireplace was brought into it. Of the work of Niccolò on the Grisogono Palace, only the portal in the ground floor of the eastern, earlier wing, which was not demolished, remained. This earlier portal was remodelled in the 15th century by the insertion of capitals and a Gothic wand on the jamb decorated with laurel leaves carved in bas relief, with a motif that Niccolò often used, as can be seen, for example, on the northern door of the Church of St Peter in Trogir. Capitals with motifs characteristic of the Florentine’s oeuvre exist in the palaces of the Split Humanists. The Grisogono fireplace, in which the hand of Niccolò di Giovanni can be identified, is a new addition to the known oeuvre of this master in Split, and additionally backs up the
earlier proposition that he had a workshop in Split. In the Split Peristyle in addition to the cathedral bell tower and the Cipci Palace, thus another building has been identified in which we find Niccolò di Giovanni present at the beginning of the 1570s, the Grisogono Palace.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
109696
URI
Publication date:
15.8.2008.
Visits: 2.509 *