Fireplace

Cardelli Lorenzo

(Roma 1733 ca. - 1794)

Valadier Luigi

(Rome 1726 - 1785)

Valadier Giuseppe

(Rome 1762-1838)

This fireplace, which has a mantelpiece in white marble, is in the middle of the wainscoting of the wall and borrows its decorative wave motif. Gilt bronze decoration with a continuous acanthus leaf motif runs around the opening of the fireplace and under the mantel. The gilt-bronze frieze, embellished with mythological scenes, is enclosed by a beaded frame. The tondi in the two cubes to the sides are decorated with fauns and maenads. The bronze applied decoration is the work of Luigi Valadier and was probably completed by his son Giuseppe. The inside of the fireplace is covered with white majolica tiles embellished with cornucopias and, to the sides, an eagle and a dragon, the heraldic animals of the Borghese family. The family emblems mark Prince Marcantonio Borghese’s commission of the complete redecoration of the Palazzina’s rooms, completed by a large team of artists and artisans under the direction of the architect Antonio Asprucci.

Object details

Commentary

This impressive decorative fireplace is unique for its rich gilt bronze frieze, which stands out against the white marble in typical Neoclassical style. A ‘French-style’ fireplace, meaning built into the wall, it is similar to the rosso antico marble one from 1782 in Room XX, featuring the same tapered pilasters with three deep flutes, although in this case they are gold and white. Nibby attributed the sculpted part to Vincenzo Pacetti (‘designed and in part executed by Pacetti’, Nibby 1832, p. 142), although it is plausible that the Roman sculptor only supplied the designs. It was likely carved by Lorenzo Cardelli, who was very active at the Villa as a marble carver.

The gilt bronze applied decoration was drawn from various classical sources (the Portland Vase, which first belonged to the Barberini family and then Sir William Hamilton, a frieze from the Forum of Nerva, the two famous paintings of Centaurs of Herculaneum and a painting of Calypso next to Ulysses from the Macellum in Pompeii, specifically the female figure standing behind Athena). The frieze is divided into four groups of figures. The resulting composition is not continuous, instead juxtaposing elements that might have been originally alternated with tree motifs that are now lost. The meaning of the imagery created by the assembly of parts of famous ancient models is unclear, the juxtaposition giving it an air of antiquarian pastiche.  It is interesting to note the author’s approach to the ancient monument, understood here as having repertorial value, using its imagery to create a frieze harmonious with the structure it embellishes and suited to its decorative function, therefore separating the components of the Portland Vase and placing them at the ends of the frieze. The figures’ orientation is opposite that of the original, implying the use of engravings and counterproofs. The reference is therefore not to the originals but to the reproductions that were in circulation at the time, for example Montfaucon’s engraving of the Portland Vase and Pietro Sante Bartoli’s Tavole delle Admiranda for the reliefs of the Forum of Nerva, in which the figures are again oriented opposite those of the original. The final payment to Luigi Valadier listed in the account book (González Palacios 1993, pp. 265–297), item no. 604, which reads: ‘to Luigi Valadier silversmith for metal trimming for a fireplace … 152:76 1/2 scudi’, was made in 1786, after his death, and the bill was issued by his son, Giuseppe, suggesting that the work was actually completed by him. This is confirmed by the description of the fireplace in a detailed list written by Giuseppe Valadier, after Luigi’s death, on 19 September 1786: ‘for having made the gilt metal trimming in the French style for a white marble fireplace, rich in bas-reliefs, fluting, beads, fusaroles, leaves. In the top moulding of this fireplace there is a row of fusaroles extending a total of 17 palmi … Beneath same is a row of 37 finely detailed leaves with pins underneath to fix them to the stone … Its border has a bas-relief along its whole length, copied from the original on the frieze of the ancient Temple of Minerva, with 20 different figures … On the sides of the front of this moulding there are two bas-reliefs copied from figures from Herculaneum in Naples surrounded by round frames of beads extending 16 palmi … On the pilasters there are three small studs and three long pods … On the two counter-pilasters there are two friezes … On the frame of this fireplace there is a row of 44 finely detailed leaves similar to the ones on the moulding’.

It is the only fireplace in the Villa with decorations attributed to Valadier, since the bronze decoration on the other fireplaces are documented to be the work of De Rossi.

Ferrara (1987) imagined that one of the two ‘very wide’ paintings by Marchetti with figures by Taddeo Kuntze and Venceslao Peter hung above it. Those two works were part of a group of sixteen that entirely covered the walls of the room with ‘different figurations and views’.  The tiles were made by Domenico Cialdi, a ‘Majolica maker’ based in S. Gallicano. In the inventory of 1809, it was described as follows: ‘A fireplace in white marble with figures in gilded metal. Fireguard in painted wood, and two fire screens in green silk’. The tiles are decorated with a scroll with a Medusa’s head in the middle, of the Rondanini type (named after the example in the Glyptothek of Munich), between two laurel festoons. Other festoons fall from the curl of the volute. In the middle, there is a relief of a sacrificial altar.

Paola Berardi