|
Nunziato d'Antonio di Domenico, known as Nunziata (1468–1525) was an Italian painter, fireworks artist, and bombardier of Renaissance Florence. None of Nunziata’s works can be identified today. Most of what we know about him comes from a single passage by Giorgio Vasari, in the 1568 edition of the ''Vite'', within the ''Life of Ridolfo, David, and Benedetto Ghirlandaio''. Too young to have known Nunziata personally, Vasari shaped him into a literary character: the joking painter in the tradition of Franco Sacchetti's ''novelle'' about Giotto and the fabled Buffalmacco. Nunziata belonged to the class of plebeian artists, and Vasari generally omitted their works. His story represents a part of Florentine art outside Vasari's canon, that became art history’s. His son Antonio, also a painter, left to work in England in 1519, and as Anthony Toto became court artist or Serjeant Painter to Henry VIII and Edward VI. ==Life== Nunziata's life and career are very sparsely documented. By 1499 we know that Nunziata had joined the Compagnia di San Luca, the Florentine artists’ confraternity. The artist was also listed in the Compagnia’s membership book of 1503-5, the so-called ''Libro rosso''. In 1515 he was paid for painting a cross in SS. Annunziata, in preparation for the consecration of the church by Leo X. A notarial document of 1507 that names him as a member of another confraternity, the Compagnia di San Girolamo, called il Ciottolino, which met ‘below the church of Santa Maria sopr’Arno’. In 1512, the deliberations of the Florentine Signoria reveal that Nunziata and his friend Ridolfo Ghirlandaio were then working—alongside the painters Francesco di Niccolò Dolzemele, Jacopo di Francesco di Domenico, Bastiano di Bartolomeo Mazzanti, and Piero di Giorgio—on the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio. Nunziata was paid in August of that year for painting nine coats of arms on the new windows that looked out over the dogana or customs-office. The anomaly of Nunziata’s place in the history of art begins with his name—styled after none other than the Annunciate Virgin Mary. It was a name exceedingly rare in fifteenth-century Florence, whether in its male or female form. Indeed, the only other Florentine known to have received it during the fifteenth century was a foundling baptized in 1470—but significantly, even in this case her given name was ‘Onesta’, and she received ‘Nunziata’ only as her baptismal name (which would never be used again after the baptismal ceremony). In documents the painter’s name appears in both the feminine version cited by Vasari and in the masculine form, Nunziato. It is the latter that appears in the newly discovered record of the artist’s birth and baptism, which dates from 22 October 1468. Until now Nunziata’s birthdate was erroneously given in the literature as 1475. A document of 1517 names Nunziata and his son Toto as witnesses to the will of a legnaiuolo named Giuseppe di Lorenzo in the parish of San Pancrazio in September 1517. Surprisingly, here Nunziata is identified not as a painter but as a bombardier (‘''Nunziato Antonii Dominici bombardiere''’). Apparently as an old man he must have fallen upon hard times. It was common for out-of-work craftsmen to moonlight as bombardiers (well-known examples include Raffaello da Montelupo and Zanobi Lastricati), though it was generally the province of masters in the more physically demanding arts, such as cannon-founders, sculptors, and ''scalpellini''. Nunziata is a rare, if not unique example of a Renaissance painter working as a bombardier. In all likelihood the skills of mixing and manipulating gunpowder to create his ''fuochi d’artificio'' turned out to be easily transferable to the job of an artilleryman when there was not enough painting work to stave the wolf from the door. On 28 September 1519 Nunziata personally came forward to give his blessing as his son Antonio, called Toto del Nunziata, contracted to work abroad with Pietro Torrigiani for four and a half years. Prior to this time, Vasari relates that Toto had worked in the shop of Nunziata’s friend Ridolfo Ghirlandaio where he had painted a number of pictures that were sent to England (just as his fellow shop assistant Bartolomeo Ghetti is said to made paintings that were sent to King Francis I of France before he himself departed for the French court). At the time Toto signed on with Torrigiani he was several months past his twenty-first birthday; technically, therefore, his father’s permission was not required for the contract. Nunziata may have wished to give his formal assent in order to ensure that there would be no qualms about the legitimacy of Toto’s contract. On the other hand, his recollection of his son Toto’s exact age may merely have been a bit shaky. The painting business must have been looking up by 1521, just as Nunziata’s personal affairs were hitting the rocks. In July of that year a decree of the Florentine criminal court of the Otto di Guardia e Balìa again refers to him as ‘''pictor''’ in a judgment by which they condemned him to pay a four-florin fine to the magistracy, to hand over two florins to a certain Andrea di Biagio, and to satisfy an unspecified debt to Andrea’s son Biagio. The substantial fine that the artist was sentenced to pay to the court (in addition to what he owed the plaintiffs) implies that Nunziata was also being punished for some kind of misdeed, though its nature is not made clear by the magistrates’ decree. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nunziata d'Antonio」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|