Ars Adriatica, No. 3, 2013.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
The Venetian indorador Pietro Sandrioli and Wooden Altar Superstructures in Rab and Šibenik
Bojan Goja
; Ministarstvo kulture - Uprava za zaštitu kulturne baštine, Konzervatorski odjel u Zadru
Sažetak
Based on new archival research, the article focuses on previously unknown information about wooden altarpieces in Rab and Šibenik. The documents created by the Rab notary Ivan Božidar Kašić, which are kept
in the State Archive at Zadar, contain a contract about the making of a wooden superstructure (palla) for the high altar in the Church of St. Andrew and its original altar painting. The contract bears the date of 19 April 1623 and obliges Piero Sandrioli, an indorador and resident of Zadar, to make an altarpieces according to a set design, fifteen-feet high and nine-and-a-half-feet wide, together with a canvas painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary and paintings depicting the scenes of the Most Holy Rosary. He was required to paint the figure of St. Dominic to the right of the Virgin, the figure of St. Catherine of Siena to her left, and, next to the Virgin’s feet at the bottom of the painting, the scenes on the topic of the Most Holy Rosary. The rest of the altarpieces had to correspond to the aforementioned design in all respects. The whole structure (probably referring to the wooden superstructure and the painting) had to be carved, delivered to the Church of St. Andrew and set up on the altar at the expense of Pietro Sandrioli. Once in Rab, after the delivery of the wooden altarpiece and the painting, Sandrioli was also required to gild the altarpiece. The entire task had to be completed by the following December. As soon as the work was completed, Sandrioli was to be paid the amount of 250 ducats and here it is mentioned that he had already received 360 lire. Apart from the described altar superstructure from Rab, the same mistro Pietro Sandrioli da Venecia indorador is mentioned in connection to the making of the former high altar in the Church of St. Dominic at Šibenik. This document of 13 June 1628 has been preserved in the records of the Šibenik notary Ante Vrančić which are also kept in the State Archive at Zadar. The document states that Lorenzo Corradis, a representative and intermediary on behalf of the confraternity of the Virgin of the Most Holy Rosary from the Church of St. Dominic, paid Pietro Sandrioli, the indorador of Venice, 376 lire which is also confirmed by a receipt issued for the services of carving and painting undertaken in Venice for the wooden high altar of the Virgin of the Most Holy Rosary.
As confirmed by Pietro Sandrioli himself, only 180 of those 376 lire had been spent and he owed Lorenzo Corradis the amount of 196 lire. In other words, he owed him the amount which could be somewhat higher or lower than the stated sum but which would correspond to the amount of money that was actually spent. The next step was to see a Venetian notary who was to issue Corradis with a confirmation that the amount of 180 lire was spent to pay for the work of the master craftsman, and this would guarantee that the money was indeed spent. For this purpose, the indorador Pietro Sandrioli, in the company of the aforementioned witnesses, promised and committed to provide a trustworthy and original confirmation issued by a Venetian notary in which these master carvers and painters would state the exact cost of their work while under oath. Then, he would bring or send this confirmation from Venice by the end of the following January. In the event of Sandrioli’s failure to send or bring the confirmation by the end of the following January, he was to be replaced by another master indorador, Zuanne Voicovich, who would be responsible for the payment of the 196 lire in full. Although this document merely regulates some expenditures, it can still be used to establish that the work on the wooden high altar for the Church of St. Dominic at Šibenik was begun before 13 June 1628 when, it seems, it was still ongoing; that the majority of work was done in Venice, and that the indoradori Pietro Sandrioli and Zuanne Voicovich were involved in the production together with numerous unnamed master wood-carvers and painters. It may be concluded that Sandrioli and Voicovich were at that time in Šibenik together, and that they worked on the completion of the altar, decorating it with gilding. Since Pietro Sandrioli was mentioned in the Rab document of 1623 as a resident of Zadar, it can be suggested with a high degree of certainty that he worked for the commissioners who were based in the capital of Dalmatia and its environments. In Venice, the term indoradóri or doradóri denoted those craftsmen who used gold or silver foils to decorate various hand-made objects, most frequently those made of wood. The Indoradóri did not have a guild of their own but formed one of the branches of the confraternity of painters, a member of which, between 1597 and 1610, was a certain Piero de Zen Sandrioli, probably the same master craftsman who worked on the wooden altarpieces at Rab and Šibenik. On the basis of the analysis of archival records and other examples of the production of carved and gilded wooden altars in seventeenth-century Venice and Dalmatia, it is concluded that the making of the wooden altar superstructure from Rab was a task shared by a number of master craftsmen who specialized in the various aspects of carpentry such as the marangoni, tornitori, figuristi, ornatisti and indoradori. Pietro Sandrioli, apart from being responsible for the tasks of an indorador, probably acted as an intermediary of sorts between them and the commissioners. After Pietro Salamone (Hvar, Zadar) and Jacopo Costantini (Trogir), Pietro Sandrioli is the third Venetian indorador to have worked for Dalmatian patrons in the late sixteenth and the early decades of the seventeenth century. Since the indorador Costantini also made the canvas painting of the Virgin and Child with St. Dominic and a donor for the wooden altar in the Dominican church at Trogir, it can be assumed that the indorador Sandrioli may have also been responsible for the painting of the now lost Virgin of the Most Holy Rosary with SS Dominic and Catherine of Siena, which was inset in the wooden altar superstructure of the main altar of the Church of St. Andrew.
Ključne riječi
Pietro Sandrioli; Pietro Salamone; indoradori; wooden altarpieces; Venice; Zadar; Rab; Šibenik; seventeenth century
Hrčak ID:
112112
URI
Datum izdavanja:
13.12.2013.
Posjeta: 2.221 *