inset on a white marble slab, including Bianco e Nero di Aquitania, Alabastro fiorito, Breccia di Settebassi, Semesanto, Giallo antico, Alabastro a tartaruga, Verde antico, Rosso antico, Alabastro listato Rome, end of 16th Century

of octagonal shape, the outer border inlaid with ovals inset within stylised cartouches; the centre with a sixteen-spike indented circle surrounded by a corona alternatively composed of stylised foliage and double gourd motifs, inscribed in a band inlaid with small roundels and rectangles; the white marble moulded border underneath carved with stylised lancet leaves; restorations, restored breaks underneath and some stones replaced.

Originally in a private collection, Norfolk

The top is now in very good professionally restored condition. There were previous breaks to the back (the white marble support) which now have been restored with blocks of threaded steel. There was also some cement infill at three of the angles which now has been restored with statuary marble. There has also been the replacement of missing antique marbles with antique marbles of the the equivalent quality and colour. Furthermore, there has been strengthening of the some of the marble inlay. The top has also been cleaned and waxed.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Octagonal tables, Rome and Florence

by Alvar Gonzalez - Palacios

It is quite likely that among the shapes of the first tables inlaid with antique marbles and coloured stones was included the octagon. This is what we can infer from the second edition of Giorgio Vasari's Le Vite (1568), where he recalls the commission of Cosimo I of Tuscany to have made a "tavolino di gioie - a small table with precious stones" inlaid with rich ornaments on an oriental alabaster ground. The artisan who made it and another one for the Duke's son, was Bernardino di Porfirio da Leccio, near Florence. Years before this artisan had worked also on an octagonal table for Bindo Altoviti, embellishing it with jasper pieces inlaid on ebony and ivory ground, after a drawing by Vasari.

Bindo Altoviti was a Florentine banker who lived in Rome. He died in 1556. He was a cultivated man, friend of many artists, portrayed by Raffaello and Benvenuto Cellini. The octagonal table in his possession designed by Vasari has been traced: it is recorded in an inventory of the palace Altoviti in 1591, and we know that many years later, in 1612, it was sold to the Savoy family. No official records exist of the table after this date, although we may have traced it back again a few years ago (1) Fig. 1.

There are other documents dating back to the 16^th and 17^th Centuries where similar octagonal tables are recorded in Rome. On 8^th January 1585, Cardinal de' Medici (Ferdinando de' Medici, who lived at that time in Villa Medici and on his brother's death  became Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1587) sends a stone inlaid octagonal table to Naples. Years later, on 30^th May 1607, the Duke of Alviso transports an inlaid white marble octagonal to Genoa, while on 2^nd August 1614 Cardinal Borghese  parts with an octagonal table inlaid with jaspers on  ebony and ivory, made in the same technique employed years before for Bindo Altoviti's table top (could it be the same table?) (2).

We have up to here referred to tables whose background was in ebony and ivory. An ebony background was apparently easier to work on, but also more fragile, and this technique, therefore, was gradually abandoned. However, the same technique was still used later in 1593, by the Florentine Domenico del Tasso for the rectangular table top of the cabinet for Ferdinando I (3).

Towards the end of the 16^th Century, the Roman workshops which had always favoured the classical tradition, encountered a new competitor: the official manufacture of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. It has to be said that a smaller and private workshop was established in Florence at the same time, that of Niccolo' Gaddi, but it did not last very long. Gaddi was a Florentine patrician, interested in architecture who spent large amounts of money experimenting this type of technique (4).

In Florence, the octagonal shape was employed for the large table of the Tribuna in the Uffizi, which is regarded as a virtuoso masterpiece. It was made by a vast number of craftsmen working at the service of the Grand Duke between 1633 and 1649. Surprisingly, not many were the tables made in Florence in that shape. There are two important Florentine tables that deserve to be mentioned. One, dated 1590-97 (5), is now in the Residenz in Munich and was actually made with more coloured marbles than hard stones. The second, much later and more important, had a threefold garland of flowers and birds, and it has recently been sold at an auction in London (6).    

Octagonal Tables: Rome

To our knowledge, there are only five octagonal tables that were made in Rome between the end of the 16^th Century and the beginning of the 17^th. To these five pieces that we are going to examine, another larger one should be added (164cm large) and it shows a central section of alabastro cotognino. It appears in a Genoese miniature portraying Doge Agostino Doria and his family (1601-1603) (7). This table top is an important piece that shares some characteristics common to other Roman inlaid works, but it differs from these for the large central inlaid reserve that could suggest a place of origin different from Rome Fig. 2a e Fig. 2b.

The five octagonal Roman tables known are the following.

One is now at the Quirinale Palace in Rome (8). Fig.3 ( 119cm. large).
A second one is at Arundel Castle in England (9). Fig.4 (136cm large). A third one is in Spain, in the Abbey of Sacromonte in Granada (10). Fig. 5 (120cm. large).
The fourth one is being examined here (115cm. large).
A fifth one is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (11). Fig.6 (137cm. large).

It is evident that these tables all share approximately the same dimensions and they were made almost exclusively with coloured marbles and with small inlays of hard stones. The first four tables mentioned above have an external frieze that, except for few variations, follows the same pattern:  horizontal and vertical ovals are enclosed in cartouches outlined in white marble, with geometrical motifs that at times are cut or halved and the perimeter is marked by two stripes of small coloured stones. The centre of three of the tables, those of Arundel, Quirinal and Sotheby's, is composed of a sixteen-spike indented circle in alabastro a tartaruga while the one in Granada is a circle.

The middle ground of the tables in Arundel and Granada is very similar, if not identical, and it includes panoplies. The tables at Sotheby's, Quirinal and Victoria and Albert museum are quite dissimilar, but share the same geometrical figures (questa frase non va bene), stylized floral and palmette motifs.
The borders of the tables at the Quirinal and in Granada are very similar, with a moulded concave border inlaid with multicolour tongue-like triangles (12). The border of the other tables, that of Arundel and the Victoria and Albert museum are not convincing and could well have been added at a later stage.
The table for sale at Sotheby's differs from all the others. The outward profile looks as if it were outlined in plain white marble, which in actual fact is part of the larger white marble slab that encloses the top. The reverse of the perimeter is carved with a pattern of lancet leaves, which becomes more elaborate in the corners. This kind of decoration can only be seen from underneath, and this leads us to suppose the table must have been designed to be placed on top of stairs from which it could have been seen.
This feature makes this table rather unique.

Drawings

A group of drawings featuring stone inlays is kept at the Gabinetto of the Uffizi. They come mainly from the collection of the afore mentioned Niccolo' Gaddi, who died in 1591. These were reputedly attributed to either Gaddi himself or the Florentine architect Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1533-1609), who was his friend, but lived mainly in Rome. Some of these drawings correspond to actual works, one of them now in the Sala di Venere in the Pitti Palace, but originally from Villa Medici in Rome. Amongst the Uffizi drawings there is one which shows a project for an octagonal table, almost certainly by the hand of Dosio ( Fig.7), which is very similar to the table now at the Quirinal.

Even closer to this is a drawing kept in Madrid, included in part of a group ascribed to the Florentine friar Giovanni Vincenzo Casale (1540-1593), who was pupil of Montorsoli, a sculptor and architect working in Florence, Rome, Naples, Spain and Portugal. Those designs show a clear taste for geometrical and naturalistic inlays applied to marble inlaid tops and floors. More precisely one of these drawings shows the very first draft for the Quirinal table whose central section is composed of a guilloche around an indented roundel. The drawing reproduced here (Fig. 8) lists the Italian names of the marbles to be employed. Another drawing uses the term "palmo romano roman palm", while Casale's assistant and nephew, Alessandro Massai, explains that these are details of stone inlaid tables typically made in Rome. This documentary evidence proves that this kind of table was executed in a quintessential Roman taste.

To conclude, the present table and the new documentary evidence re-inforces our original belief that this type of inlay is of Roman origin and not Florentine. The present table has unquestionably been designed by Casale, the same architect who designed the tables at the Quirinal, Arundel Castle and Granada which all share identical external bands, a similar polychrome palette and geometrical and naturalistic inlays.

ORIGINS OF THE COMMESSO TECHNIQUE: BETWEEN ROME AND FLORENCE

In many of my writings about this kind of inlay in coloured marbles and hard-stones I proposed Rome as a possible origin. The first well-known craftsman working in Rome in this field in the second half of the 16^th Century was called "il Franciosino"; his official name was Jean Menard (Giovanni Meynard, Menardo or Mynardo). French in origin (as his nickname implies) , he worked in a circle close to Michelangelo and worked for Cardinal Giovanni Ricci from Montepulciano, the Viceroy of Naples and the Queen of France Catherine de' Medicis. He died in Paris in 1582.

Tuscan artists kept regular contacts with Rome. It was there that Giorgio Vasari learned the art of the stones, constantly looking for rare marbles for Cosimo I, and also producing, as we have seen above,  the drawing for the table made for Bindo Altoviti in Rome. In Florence, for decades, the Medici collections included several inlaid works and yet, the table with inlaid coloured marbles mentioned in the records of Cosimo I in 1553, was not necessarily Florentine.

During the following fifteen years, until 1568, many of the facts known occured in Rome. A book of drawings by the artist Giovanni Colonna da Tivoli, dated 1554, include a table whose top has a typical partition of a work of this kind. This work was somehow connected to the Palace of Cardinal Ricci in Via Giulia. The Cardinal became a patron and protector of this new taste: he commissioned extraordinary works to the Franciosino, such as tables employing transparent alabaster to be sent as presents to the King of Portugal. They unfortunately sank into the sea in 1564. Not less important is the Chapel, rich in coloured antique marbles, erected by the same cardinal in San Pietro in Montorio. Rome also played an important role in the formation of one of the great Tuscan architects, Bartolomeo Ammannati, who in 1555 praised the works commissioned by Pope Julius III for his villa on the outskirts of Rome. Among these there were tables of large dimensions supported by tripods in white marble inlaid with coloured stones, of which unfortunately no record remains.  The one support of this kind that still exists is that which holds an africano marble basin in the church of Santa Croce in Bosco Marengo, Piedmont, that was executed on the order of Pius V around 1570. Three supports in white sculpted statuary marble showing no inlay, hold the grand Farnese Table that was reputedly drawn by Jacopo Barozzi, called Vignola,  around 1565, for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, but once stood in the large Palace of Paolo III's family in Rome. Nothing is known about the making of this masterpiece, nor of those few other tables of the 16^th Century that have survived. Besides the name of Franciosino, other artisan's names are known during these years: Giovannozzo and Ludovico from Fiesole worked in Bosco Marengo for Pius V; Ludovico di Bastiano de' Rossi and his brother Francesco, from Florence, and Francesco di Baronio worked for Cardinal Ricci, while Ludovico delle Tavole and other stone cutters were active in the Ricci Chapel in San Pietro in Montorio (Ludovico from Fiesole, Ludovico de' Rossi and Ludovico delle Tavole might be the same person).

Around 1565 other inlaid tables (called commessi, using the Florentine terminology; the commettitore was the workman who specialised in inlaying marbles) were executed as it appears from the contemporary archival documents: 'tre tavole commesse di vari mischi '(three tables inlaid with coloured marbles) are mentioned in the records of an important collector, the Bishop of Viterbo, Sebastiano Gualtiero.

The exchange of ideas between Rome and Florence has always been quite elusive. In a letter of 1567 Vasari wrote from Rome to prince Francesco de' Medici in Florence in which he explained the methods that the maestri followed to place the various marbles according to their vein: 'et in questo modo fanno le tavole grandi, che cosi' delle de Picti -Palazzo Pitti - che il maestro che l'ha fatte m'ha detto tutto questo' ( this is the way they make the big tables, like the ones in the Picti (Pitti Palace) it was the maker himself who told me this). This letter confirms the fact that some of the tables belonging to the Medici collection were made in Rome.

Years ago I proposed a Roman origin for a beautiful table in the Museo degli Argenti in Florence. It has the signs of the Zodiac and its wooden support is sculpted with the coat of arms of the Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici (it must be dated between 1564 and 1587, when the prince renounced to his Cardinal's rank, to become the Grand Duke of Tuscany, upon his brother's death). Cardinal Ferdinando lived mainly in Rome up to that moment, and it is almost sure that that piece of furniture was made for him in the eternal city. The same applies to other important tables that are now in Pitti Palace, (Sala di Venere) and in the Medici Villa of Poggio Imperiale (both are clearly recorded in the inventories of Villa Medici in Rome in 1588 and 1589). These facts do not exclude that the drawings for these works (which were made in Rome), could have been Florentine.

The opposite is also true. On 16^th June 1569 Cardinal Ricci sent a white marble slab from Rome to Florence as a present to Cosimo or Francesco de' Medici. According to his wish, it was to be ' ricamata di quelle cose belle che avete la', che io per mancanza di materiali non l'ho fornita ma li ho fatto ben le fasce o ver cornici' (embroidered with those beautiful things you have there, those materials we do not have here, but we have already prepared for you its frames ). It was therefore possible to have works initiated in Rome and finished in Florence.
It is still difficult to distinguish the differences between a table made in Florence and one made in Rome in that period, yet various new elements started to appear in the ornamental motifs. This variation was easily detected in Rome, thanks to a series of Papal Chapels that are well documented. These include the Cappella Gregoriana and the Cappella Clementina in Saint Peter's (commissioned by Gregory XIII and Clemens VIII); the Cappella Sistina commissioned by Sixtus V and the Cappella Paolina ordered by Paul V in Saint Maria Maggiore, dating from the beginning of 17^th Century. The same applies to the transept in Saint John in Laterano, ordered by Clemens VIII and to other princely Chapels in the Church of Gesù and in St Andrea della Valle. All these sumptuous works share the characteristic of using coloured marble slabs on which geometrical motifs, coats of arms and religious symbols were applied or inlaid. In the church of Santa Pudenziana at the very end of the 16^th Century, the Caetani Chapel includes many symbols of martyrdom, some made in relief. These works were made by Giovanni Battista della Porta (1542-1597) and they show a resemblance to what was going to be made some years later in the Chapel of the Princes in Florence.
Finally the Roman production will generally be characterised by geometrical and highly stylised motifs that even the figurative elements become almost abstract.

Bibliography.

This extract is taken from the texts by Alvar Gonzales-Palacios: Mosaici e Pietre dure, Milano, Fabbri, 1981; Splendori di Pietre dure, catalogo della mostra, Firenze, Palazzo pitti, 1988, pages 43-52; Il Gusto dei Principi, milano, Longanesi, 1996, pages 369-387; Las Colecciones Reales espanolas de Mosaicos y Piedras duras, catalogo della mostra, Madrid, Museo del Prado, 2001, pages 45-53. In all the above publications a bibliography is given, and for the specific subject we discussed here, the Roman origin of the Florentine inlaid tables, please refer to the studies of Filippo Tuena

1 A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Gusto dei Principi, Milan, 1993, pp. 380-381, plate XLI; A. Gonzalez-Palacios in Raphael, Cellini and a Renaissance Banker. The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti, exhibition catalogue by A. Chong, D. Pegazzano, D. Zikos, Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2003, pp. 432-434.
2 A. Bertolotti, "Esportazioni di oggetti di belle arti da Roma" in the Artistic and Historic Archives...of the city and Province of Rome, 1877, vol. II/1, p.26; vol.II/3, pp. 148, 159.
3 Splendori di pietre dure catalogo della mostra, Firenze 1988, p.106-107 (A.M.Massinelli).
4 C. Acidini Luchinat, "Niccolò Gaddi collezionista e dilettante del Cinquecento" in Paragone, 359-361, 1980, pp.141-175.
5 B. Langer, A. von Württemberg, Die deutschen Möbel des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, Munich, 1996, pp.52-56.
6 Christie's, London, June 9, 2005, lot 50 note of A. Gonzalez-Palacios "An Octagonal Italian Pietra Dura Table Top from the Fiorentine Grand Ducal Workshops" dated circa 1715-1725.
7 A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il mobile in Liguria, Genoa, 1996, pp.58-59: I am not convinced anymore of the attribution to Giovanni Battista Paggi of this miniature, as I stated in that publication.
8 A. Gonzalez-Palacios, Il patrimonio artistico del Quirinale. I Mobili italiani, Milan, 1996, cat. 140.
In reality the piece of furniture has not always been at the Quirinal: until 1898 it was in the Alcove Room in the Royal Palace in Turin.
An archival photograph showing the remaining part of a table cut into two parts repeats the composition of the one today in the Quirinal but with different chromatic contrasts. When this photograph was taken, the table was in Spain.
9 S. Jervis, "Furniture at Arundel Castle", in The Connoisseur, 197, 1978, fig. H, p. 209.
10 M. P. Aguiló Alonso, "Para un Corpus de las piedras duras en España. Algunas precisiones" in the Art Spanish Archives, 299, 2002, pp.255-267, fig. 5, 9.
11 The table is in the Victoria and Albert Museum since 1881. The external frieze, in a dark marble, does not seem to be of the period. The central octagon, in breccia Quintilina is different from the others which are made of alabaster.
12 Similar borders with tongue-like triangles as mentioned here can be found in a table in the Museum of Antigua in Lisbon, as well in Don Rodrigo Calderon in the Prado Museum, and one recently purchased in the Decorative Art Museum in Madrid, Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, Las Colecciones Reales Españolas de Mosaicos y Piedras duras, exhibition catalogue, Madrid, Prado Museum, 2001, pp. 53, 69, 249.
13 A. Morrogh, Disegni di architetti fiorentini, Florence, 1985, cat 58
14Ibidem, n.32.
15 O Lanzarini, "Il codice cinquecentesco di Giovanni Vincenzo Casale" in the Annals of Architecture, 10-11, 1998-1999, pp. 183-202. Aguiló Alonso op. cit.