- Pietro Francavilla
Pierre Franqueville, generally called Pietro Francavilla (1548 —
25 August 1615 ), was a Franco-Flemish sculptor trained inFlorence , who provided sculpture for Italian and French patrons in the elegant Late Mannerist tradition established byGiambologna .Biography
Born at
Cambrai , he received his early training as a draftsman inParis . In 1565 he is recorded atInnsbruck , whereAlexander Colin was working on the elaborate monument in the Hofkirche for the funerary monument to Emperor Maximilian I. In this project Franqueville learned enough of the practice of sculpture to enter the large Florentine atelier of his fellow countryman, Giambologna. [ Giambologna or "Jean de Boulogne" was born inDouai in 1529. Franqueville was provided with a letter of introduction from Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.] Francavilla became his master's main assistant in the carving of marble, including the masterpiece of the "Rape of the Sabines" displayed in theLoggia dei Lanzi , Florence. His first independent commissions were extended to him through Giambologna, who become overwhelmed with requests. Francavilla's finished pen-and-ink drawings after the master's "bozzetti" for projects, as they were stored at the workshop, are in some cases the only testament to works that have been lost or that were never executed. [Undated drawings of Giambologna "modelli " by Francavilla were purchased for theVictoria and Albert Museum in 1993 (see Ref. V&A).]In 1574, he began his first independent commission, eventually constituting thirteen garden sculptures for abbate Antonio di Zanobi Bracci for the Villa Bracci at
Rovezzano near Florence. The thirteen were purchased through Sir Horace Mann, British envoy at Florence, forFrederick, Prince of Wales , who died without ever seeing them; they were left in storage atKew and have been dispersed and ignored, then rediscovered in 1952. ["Apollo" (1577) and "Zephyr" (1576) are at theVictoria and Albert Museum ; four more from the series are among the sculptures in SirJeffrey Wyattville 's East Terrace Garden,Windsor Castle ; see A. H. Scott-Elliot, "The Statues by Francavilla in The Royal Collection" "The Burlington Magazine" 98 No. 636 (March 1956), pp. 76-84.] A late example in the series, the "Venus" at theWadsworth Atheneum , Hartford, is signed and dated 1600, and must have been made for or acquired by Bracci's nephew, who inherited the estate in 1585. [Scott-Elliot 1956:77, 79 fig. 21.]In 1585 Francavilla was elected to the Florentine Academy.
In 1589 nearly all artists in Florence were recruited for the unprecedented decorations set up to celebrate the wedding of
Ferdinando I de' Medici and Christina of Lorraine, including painted triumphal arches along the procession route. [The wedding's elaborate temporary decorations were memorialized in the engravings of a festival book, published in 1589 (see Ref.)] For the event, a temporary façade was erected for the Duomo, designed byGiovanni Antonio Dosio ; Francavilla provided sculptures of Saints Zenobius andPoggio .In 1590 he executed four marble sculptures of the "Seasons" to be erected at
Bartolomeo Ammanati 'sPonte Santa Trinita , Florence; they replaced the temporary sculptures of Roman heroes, erected for the wedding festivities.In 1598 he executed an "Orpheus with Cerberus" for the banker Jerome (Girolamo) de Gondi, gentleman of the King's bedchamber, whose Florentine family had emigrated to France in the train of
Catherine de' Medici . Gondi placed it in a central fountain in the garden of his Paris hôtel in the suburban Faubourg Saint-Germain, [It was accompanied by bronze figures of animals byRomolo Ferruzzi del Tadda . In 1612 Hôtel Gondi became theHôtel Condé (see Ref. Presenze toscane),] where it was much admired. It eventually found its way to the gardens of Versailles. Gondi'sChâteau de Saint-Cloud was later purchased for Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV. The sculpture is now in theLouvre Museum .He intervened, probably only with drawings, in the new architectural façade provided for the
Palazzo dei Priori, Pisa ; the Gothic structure was unified under a scheme commenced by Vasari to create a Medicean focus in Pisa. In the re-named Piazza dei Cavalieri, Francavilla's monumentalstatue of Cosimo I reigned over the former Palazzo degli Anziani ("Palace of the Elders"), a former symbol of Pisan independence remade as a Medicean monument. [See references atPiazza dei Cavalieri ).]He was invited to France by Henry IV in 1601, when
Pietro Tacca took his place as Giambologna's premier assistant. WhenMarie de Medici , the Florentine-born queen of France, decided to erect an equestrian statue in honor of her husband, Henry IV, she awarded the commission to Giambologna, who had executed monuments to the grand dukes of Tuscany, Cosimo and Ferdinand I (at Arezzo) Following Giambologna's death (1608), the casting and finishing was executed by his pupilPietro Tacca . When the bronze arrived in Paris, the queen commissioned a pedestal from Pierre Francqueville, as he was known in France. He modelled three bas-reliefs for the base to be cast in bronze and modeled four bound captives before his death. His pupil and son-in-law,Francesco Bordoni , who had followed Francavilla to France, cast and finished the bronzes, which were completed in 1618.Francavilla died in 1615. His portrait, executed in chalk, by
Hendrik Goltzius in 1591, is in theRijksmuseum .Major works
*Garden sculptures for Villa Bracci, Rovezzano (1574)
*"Amorino" (c. 1580), a joint work with Giambologna. [Now Kress Collection, Seattle Art Museum; [http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/collection/holocaustProvenanceDetail.asp?objectID=14011| Holocaust Provenance] .]
*"Jason" (late 1580s), marble, Museo del Bargello, Florence
*"Seasons" (1590), two marble sculptures for the Ponte S. Trinita , Florence. ["Spring" and "Winter", the other two are byGiovanni Battista Caccini . When the bridge was blown by the retreating Germans at the close of World War II, the sculptures toppled into theArno , from which they were recovered when the bridge was meticulously restored "com'era". All but the head of "Spring" were found; the missing head was fortuitously recovered from the riverbed later, after a frantic search that included notices of rewards posted in newspapers. (Mary McCarthy, "The Stones of Florence".]
*"Ferdinand I de' Medici" (1595), Arezzo. Executed to a design by Giambologna.
*"Cosimo I" (1596),Pisa ; the Grand Duke is in the robes of Grand Master of his "Ordine dei Cavalieri di Santo Stefano", erected in Piazza dei Cavalieri, Pisa, [http://www.sns.it/en/scuola/luoghi/piazzadeicavalieri/] as a civic symbol of thehegemony of Florence.
*"Orpheus" (1598), marble, Hôtel de Gondi, Paris.
*Four bound "Captives" (1614) from the base of the equestrian statue ofHenry IV of France , erected in 1635 on thePont-Neuf , Paris, [The bronze of Henry IV was destroyed at the Revolution, in August 1792.] cast and finished by his son-in-lawFrancesco Bordoni , 1618; they were stored through the Napoleonic Empire, and have been in theLouvre Museum since 1817.
*"David, conqueror of Goliath", marble (Louvre Museum).
*"Mercury" [Donatella Pegazzano, catalogue entry, in exhibition "La Reggia Rivelata", curated by Detlef Heikamp, Palazzo Pitti, 2003.]
*"Venus" 1600, marble (Wadsworth Atheneum , Hartford, Connecticut)
*"Meleager" [Included in the travelling exhibition, "L’Ombra del Genio. Michelangelo e l’arte a Firenze- 1537-1631", 2002.]
*"Bust of Saint Romualdo" [Included in the travelling exhibition, "L’Ombra del Genio. Michelangelo e l’arte a Firenze- 1537-1631", 2002.]Notes
References
*(Donatella Pegazzano), "Il Giasone di Palazzo Zanchini: Pietro Francavilla al Museo del Bargello" Exhibition, 2002, of the recently-acquired Zanchini di Castiglionchio "Giasone" (Jason).
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/francavilla_pietro.html Pietro Francavilla on-line]
* [http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225985&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673225985&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500822&bmUID=1155418280803&bmLocale=en (Louvre Museum) Four Captives]
* [http://special-1.bl.uk/treasures/festivalbooks/BookDetails.aspx?strFest=0204 A copy of the festival book of 1589 at the British Library.]
* [http://www.toscana-europa.it/?sezione=15&dettaglio=91 "Presenze toscane in Europa: Parigi"]
* [http://www.artfund.org/artwork/5305/drawings-of-modelli-for-sculptural V&A:drawings of Giambologna's "bozzetti"]
* [http://www.sns.it/en/scuola/luoghi/piazzadeicavalieri/ (Scuola Normale Superiore), Piazza dei Cavalieri]
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