The Funerary Monument to Cardinal Niccolo Forteguerri (circa 1483) is an assembly of mostly deep bas-relief sculptures installed posthumously on a wall of the Cathedral of Pistoia to memorialize the native Cardinal. While the initial design for this monument was completed by the Renaissance sculptor Andrea Verrochio, the present arrangement, completed centuries later, was assembled with substantial modifications by lesser-known artists.
Niccolò Forteguerri (1419 – 1473), nephew of Pope Pius II, was a legate, general and cardinal of the Roman Catholic church. Upon his death, his remains were interred with another monument in the church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome; [1] but his posthumous patronage and endowments, which included the Biblioteca Forteguerriana and an allied school in Pistoia, prompted his town to honor his memory with a local monument.
The negotiations leading to Verrochio's contract were complex. The Operai di San Jacopo or Works Commission of the Cathedral of San Jacopo in Pistoia, issued in 1473 a call for proposals for a monument from 5 sculptors, mostly based in Florence. Other than Verrochio, we do not know who the competitors for the project were, nor what their proposals depicted. It appears the proposal by Verrocchio was the initial first choice of the Operai; however, they balked at the exorbitant cost (350 ducats), since the local council had budgeted only 1100 lire. The relations of Verrochio and the Operai soon soured, and by 1477, the Operai elected to award the commission to another sculptor, Piero del Pollaiuolo, who was then active in Pistoia, and who had quoted a cost of 380 florins. However, the Pistoiese council, established by the Florentine administration, still favored Verrochio, and this disagreement led in 1478 to arbitration by Lorenzo de Medici. [2] [3] From the archives of Pistoia, it is known the arbitration led to the reassignment of the commission to Verrocchio, but we do not have details of how such a decision was made.
While some documents state that the sculptures in Verrochio's studio were nearly complete by November 1483; [4] once Verrochio had left, more disagreements emerged about payment for transport to Pistoia, and about the quality of the work. By 1483, Verrocchio had departed from Florence to work in Venice on the prestigious commission of the bronze equestrian statue of the condottiere Colleoni. Thus back in Florence, some of the figures appear to have been completed by assistants, led by Lorenzo di Credi.
Upon arrival to Pistoia in 1488, the Operai employed Lorenzetto Lotti and Giovanni Francesco Rustici to repair or alter the sculptures of Charity and the kneeling cardinal. This latter sculpture, in particular, was to have been of poor quality. Thus the tomb, as planned, remained incomplete for over two centuries, with the sculptures in the chapel embedded in a stucco background. Some have opinionated that the allegories of Faith, Hope, Charity and the figure of Christ were sculpted by Verrochio, while most of the angels were not.
In the 1660s, Cardinal Rospigliosi endowed the Cathedral a relic of St Bartholemew. It was initially placed in monument before Forteguerri cenotaph, but over the next century it was decided to dedicate that chapel entirely to the Saint, and displace the Forteguerri monument to first bay of left aisle. To complete the move, a poorly known Florentine sculptor, Gaetano Masoni, was hired in 1753-1754 to move the monument. He added a late baroque marble volute frames and two crying putti. Masoni in the process trimmed some of the other sculptures. The sculptures also have been compressed into a smaller space than originally planned. The poorly carved statue of the kneeling cardinal was substituted by a bust of the cardinal, all encased around volutes with a small dark marble sarcophagus.
This is not the only Forteguerri monument to suffer exile from its original positioning, the 19th-century monument of the cardinal in Piazza Santo Spirito was moved here from its former position in the Piazza del Duomo. [5]
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a small terracotta model or bozzetto that is attributed to Verrochio, perhaps the model selected in the initial competition. However, the provenance of the bozzetto is not complete, hence it is possible, that it was completed by some later artist. If the model only reflects Verocchio's work, it would be a prescient style for its time. Intended to be nearly three stories high, the Christ in a Mandorla is held aloft by four angels, while at the base, triangulating around the kneeling cardinal, are women emblematic of the three theologic virtues: Faith (on left, proffering the cross), Charity (atop, suckling an infant), and Hope (on right, gazing upward). [6] The model has some elements whose style is archaic, while other elements are prescient of Baroque styles. For example, the benedicent Christ in the Mandorla is a typically medieval trope. The triangular arrangement of the three theologic virtues, is locked to an allegoric Renaissance vocabulary. However, the lone figure of the praying cardinal, surrounded by the animated figures, is almost baroque in its rendition, lacking the impassive rigid arrangement of much high-Renaissance sculpture. [7] [8]
There are some similarities between the bozzetto and a bas-relief (1473) for the pulpit of Prato Cathedral, depicting the Madonna della Cintola (Our Lady of the Holy Girdle of Thomas). This bas-relief was sculpted by Antonio Rossellino and Mino da Fiesole, and depicts the Virgin inside a mandorla held aloft by angels.
Andrea del Verrocchio, born Andrea di Michele di Francesco de' Cioni, was a sculptor, Italian painter and goldsmith who was a master of an important workshop in Florence.
Mino da Fiesole, also known as Mino di Giovanni, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor from Poppi, Tuscany. He is noted for his portrait busts.
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Lorenzo di Credi was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor best known for his paintings of religious subjects. He is most famous for having worked in the studio of Andrea del Verrocchio at the same time as the young Leonardo da Vinci.
Niccolò dell’Arca was an Italian Early Renaissance sculptor, who worked mostly in terracotta. He is also known under the names Niccolò da Ragusa, Niccolò da Bari and Niccolò d'Antonio d'Apulia. The surname “dell’Arca” refers to his contribution to the Arca di San Domenico.
The Arca di San Domenico is a monument containing the remains of Saint Dominic. It is located in Dominic’s Chapel in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, Italy.
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Andrea di Cristoforo Bregno (1418–1506) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect of the Early Renaissance who worked in Rome from the 1460s and died just as the High Renaissance was getting under way.
Lorenzo Lotti, also known as Lorenzetto, (1490–1541), born Lorenzo di Lodovico di Guglielmo, was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect in the circle of Raphael.
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Niccolò Fortiguerra was an Italian papal legate, military commander, and Cardinal.
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The Piazza Madonna is a tempera on panel painting, dating to 1474-1486 and held in Pistoia Cathedral.
The San Giovanni in Corte Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of San Giovanni di Rotondo, is a former Roman Catholic building in Pistoia, region of Tuscany, Italy. The octagonal baptistery stands at a slight angle across a small piazza from the Duomo of Pistoia in the center of town. It is presently used for cultural events.
Santo Spirito, once called the church of Sant'Ignazio, is a Roman Catholic church in Pistoia, region of Tuscany, Italy.
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Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge. The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and the uses to which sculpture was put. In complete contrast to painting, there were many surviving Roman sculptures around Italy, above all in Rome, and new ones were being excavated all the time, and keenly collected. Apart from a handful of major figures, especially Michelangelo and Donatello, it is today less well-known than Italian Renaissance painting, but this was not the case at the time.