Fireplace

roman school

Like the Galleria’s other five fireplaces, this one was made during the renovation of the interiors commissioned by Prince Marcantonio Borghese in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The fireplace, which has a Pavonazzo marble frame, has an architrave mantelpiece with a slightly projecting cornice and plain side pilasters. The face is decorated in the middle with facing unicorns in carved, gilded wood. On the sides, there are pateras with festoons and cascades of sacrificial instruments. The inside of the fireplace is decorated with majolica tiles with a motif of four-point stars in a palette of green, blue, white and yellow. The backplate has a wavy shape and the coat of arms of Agnese Colonna Borghese (1702–1780), mother of the prince, is in an oval in the middle.

Object details

Commentary

This ‘French-style’ (built-in) ornamental fireplace is in Pavonazzo marble with carved and gilded wood decorations. With simpler lines than the Villa’s other fireplaces, its opening is decorated with a simple frame of decreasing listels According to an inventory drawn up in 1809, there was a ‘two-part mirror with a gilt frame’ above this fireplace. Unlike the others, which were against walls covered with fabric, this one was on a wall frescoed, possibly with simple views, by Giovan Battista Marchetti. 

It is finely made, although plain and more austere, including in terms of the materials used. It was made for the late eighteenth-century renovation that updated the interiors, designed by Antonio Asprucci for Prince Marcantonio Borghese, and on which painters, sculpture, stonecutters, silversmiths, carvers, decorators and artisans of various kind worked side by side.

The fireplace is made of Pavonazzo marble with an architrave mantelpiece with a slightly projecting cornice and plain side pilasters. The front is decorated with facing unicorns in carved, gilded wood. To the sides, there are pateras with festoons and cascades of sacrificial implements. The opening of the fireplace is decorated with a simple frame of decreasing listels. The inside is covered in majolica tiles embellished with a four-point star motif.

The documentation for these works is kept in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano and was published by Ferrara (1987) and González Palacios (1993). The tiles were made by Domenico Cialdi, ‘a majolica maker’ based in S. Gallicano and the only artisan who worked on this fireplace who is named in the documents. The tiles measure 21 x 21 cm and are decorated with four-point stars against a background of plant motifs. The hues green, blue, white and yellow predominate. The coat of arms on the cast iron backplate is of Agnese Colonna Borghese (1702–1780), wife of Camillo (1693–1763) and mother of Marcantonio IV (1730–1800).

Paola Berardi