MARIANI, Camillo

This work is one of three bronze apes now on a fountain in the Boboli Gardens, Florence. These apes and one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York are linked to a 1596 commissions for a marble fountain in the garden of the Villa Miralfiore in Pesaro. From 1595 Mariani spent two years in Pesaro, and completed the commission from Francesco Maria II della Rovere, duke of Urbino, in 1596.

Menageries of domestic and exotic animals were often kept at Renaissance courts, and one in or near Urbino may have provided inspiration for this subject as well as models for the artist.

The current layout of the fountain, which consists of elements made by different sculptors in different periods and using a variety of materials, dates back to the early 19th century. In the centre of the basin is a fountain in pietra serena and white marble. On the base are three bronze apes by Vicenza sculptor Camillo Mariani. These curious figures were made for the Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II della Rovere. Mariani had entered the duke’s service in 1595 and created the apes for a fountain at Villa Miralfiore in Pesaro. They were taken from Pesaro to Florence, to the Villa di Poggio Imperiale by Vittoria della Rovere after her marriage to Ferdinando II de’ Medici. The current location of the apes most likely dates back to 1830, when the other sculptures were also transferred from the Medici villa to the Boboli Gardens.

A fourth ape carrying a young ape in its arms, belonging to the original set (which perhaps consisted of five elements), is now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. In the context of the Duke of Urbino’s decorative scheme for his Pesaro villa, which was considered a place to withdraw from public life, the presence of the apes is explained as a customary reference to the tendency for vice or stupid imitations of sounds and gestures, attitudes that have always been attributed to this type of animal.

For conservation reasons, the sculptures were recently replaced by copies.

The statue show a tailless barbary ape. With her long arms she originally clutched two baby apes to her shoulder. The arm and leg of the missing second baby can still be seen dangling along her left side.

This bronze and three other bronze apes now on a fountain in the Boboli Gardens, Florence are linked to a 1596 commissions for a marble fountain in the garden of the Villa Miralfiore in Pesaro. From 1595 Mariani spent two years in Pesaro, and completed the commission from Francesco Maria II della Rovere, duke of Urbino, in 1596.

Menageries of domestic and exotic animals were often kept at Renaissance courts, and one in or near Urbino may have provided inspiration for this subject as well as models for the artist.

Caterina de’ Nobili Sforza (1535-1605) was one of the women patrons of art in the period. She built the circular church of San Bernardo alle Terme out of the ruins of one of the circular pavilions at the corners of the ancient Baths of Diocletian. Each of the bays around the Pantheon-like structure is decorated with an inscription commemorating members of her family. She commissioned Camillo Mariani, newly arrived from the Veneto, where he had specialized in decorative plasterwork for Palladian villas, to fill the niches with heroic-sized statues referring to her family and to herself (St Catherine of Alexandria and St Catherine of Siena). For the first time outside of royal commissions, the independent patronage of women took on a public scale equal to that of male donors.

Camillo Mariani trained in the school of Alessandro Vittoria and late sixteenth-century Venetian sculpture, where the emphasis lay in formal elegance allied to direct and simple gestures. These features emerge notably in his large stucco figures for the Roman church of San Bernardo alle Terme, works which have rightly been compared to late Veronese as well as Vittoria.

The brightness of Mariani’s huge stucco figures melds with the background against which they are set, creating a luminous play that recalls Mariani’s roots in Vicenza: he had learned his greatest lessons from the sculptor Alessandro Vittoria.

Pendant to the Cappella Sistina in the right transept of Santa Maria Maggiore, built by Domenico Fontana, the Cappella Paolina is on the opposite side of the church. It was founded by Pope Paul V three months after his election in 1605. Its structure was substantially complete by 1611, and the altar was finished two years later. The architect was Flaminio Ponzio, and the scheme that he adopted derived directly from the earlier chapel.

In the Cappella Paolina the lateral walls are again filled with tombs, on the right that of Clement VIII and on the left that of Paul V. Architecturally Ponzio’s tombs are faithful reproductions of Fontana’s, but the decoration is much richer, the reliefs are carved in greater depth, and are designed with stronger visual emphasis.

The following main elements of the sculptural decoration are on the tomb of Clement VIII.

In the centre: the statue of the Pope by Silla LONGHI.

In the upper register: Conclusion of Peace between France and Spain by Ippolito BUZZI (left relief); Coronation of Pope Clement VIII by Pietro BERNINI (central relief); Canonisation of St Raymond and St Hyacinth by Giovanni Antonio PARACCA (right relief); Caryatides by Pietro BERNINI.

In the lower register: Surrender of Ferrara by Ambrogio BONVICINO (left relief); Gian Francesco Aldobrandini Leading the Papal Troops against the Turks by Camillo MARIANI (right relief).