Michael Shamansky, Bookseller Inc.
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Item Number: 115857
Title: L’oreficeria sacra dei Castellani in Vaticano
Author: Sante, Guido
Price: Not Available
ISBN: 9788863390223
Description: Citta del Vaticano: Edizioni Capitolo Vaticano, 2011. 29cm., pbk., 32pp. illus., most in color. Summary: Amongst the numerous works representing the goldsmiths’ art in the Museum of the Treasury of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, we fi nd a missal cover fashioned from gold, pearls, gems and ivory and a votive lamp of gold and gemstones, both made in the second half of the 1800s by the workshop of Castellani, the best-known of the Roman jewellers in the Nineteenth century, famed for the antique good taste of its original productions. The design of both works was inspired by the traditions of the ancient goldsmiths, reinterpreted via the creative skill of the Castellani clan: the votive lamp is made in a minimalist style, composed of geometric, serial sequences with coloured stones typical of the so-called “Lombard” barbaric style, while the missal cover has been designed by augmenting precious gold and gems with a delicate decoration of “Byzantine” mosaics. Both are something of a rarity in the vast panorama of artefacts held today consisting mostly of diadems, necklaces, brooches and furnishings, in representing a class of objects destined for liturgical use, of which the surviving examples are now extremely rare and limited to a few, renowned pieces. The recent process of restoration has provided new information on the quality of materials and techniques used, while a series of unpublished documents, uncovered on that occasion, has permitted the detailed reconstruction of the actual moments of the creation of the two works through the earliest design stages. (Archivum sancti petri : Studi e documenti sulla storia del capitolo vaticano e del suo clero, 17)

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