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FINIGUERRA, MASO [i.e. TOMMASO] (1426...
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See also:FINIGUERRA, MASO [i.e. TOMMASO] (1426-1464) , Florentine See also:goldsmith, draughtsman, and engraver, whose name is distinguished in the See also:history of See also:art and craftsmanship for reasons which are partly mythical. See also:Vasari represents him as having been the first inventor pf the art of See also:engraving (using that word in its popular sense of taking impressions on See also:paper from designs engraved on See also:metal plates), and Vasari's See also:account was universally accepted and repeated until See also:recent See also:research proved it erroneous. What we actually know from contemporary documents of Finiguerra, his origin, his See also:life, and his See also:work, is as follows. He
was the son of See also:Antonio, and See also:grandson of Tommaso Finiguerra or Finiguerri, both goldsmiths of See also:Florence, and was See also:born in Sta See also:Lucia d'Ognissanti in 1426. He was brought up to the hereditary profession of goldsmith and was See also:early distinguished for his work in See also:niello. In his twenty-third See also:year (1449) we find 'See also:note of a See also:sulphur See also:cast from a niello of his workmanship being handed over by the painter Alessio Baldovinetti to a customer in See also:payment or See also:exchange for a See also:dagger received. In 1452 Maso delivered and was paid for a niellated See also:silver See also:pax commissioned for the See also:baptistery of St See also: On the 14th of See also:December 1464 Maso Finiguerra made his will, and died shortly afterwards. These documentary facts are supplemented by several writers of the next See also:generation with statements more or less authoritative. Thus See also:Baccio See also:Bandinelli says that Maso was among the See also:young artists who worked under See also:Ghiberti on the famous See also:gates of the baptistery; Benvenuto See also:Cellini that he was the finest See also:master of his See also:day in the art of niello engraving, and that his masterpiece was a pax of the Crucifixion in the baptistery of St John; that being no great draughtsman, he in most cases, including that of the above-mentioned pax, worked from drawings by Antonio Pollaiuolo. Vasari, on the other See also:hand, allowing that Maso was a much inferior draughtsman to Pollaiuolo, mentions nevertheless a number of See also:original drawings by him as existing in his own collection, " with figures both draped and nude, and histories See also:drawn in See also:water-See also:colour." Vasari's account was confirmed and amplified in the next See also:century by See also:Baldinucci, who says that he has seen many drawings by Finiguerra much in the manner of See also:Masaccio; adding that Maso was beaten by Pollaiuolo in competition for the reliefs of the great silver See also:altar-table See also:commission by the merchants' gild for the baptistery of St John (this famous work is now preserved in the See also:Opera del Duomo). But the See also:paragraph of Vasari which has chiefly held the See also:attention of posterity is that in which he gives this craftsman the See also:credit of having been the first to See also:print off impressions from niello plates on sulphur casts and afterwards on sheets of paper, and of having followed up this invention by engraving See also:copper-plates for the See also:express purpose of See also:printing impressions from them, and thus became the inventor and father of the art of engraving in See also:general. Finiguerra, adds Vasari, was succeeded in the practice of engraving at Florence by a goldsmith called Baccio Baldini, who, not having much invention of his own, borrowed his designs from other artists and especially from See also:Botticelli. In the last years of the 18th century Vasari's account of Finiguerra's invention was held to have received a decisive and startling See also:confirmation under the following circumstances. There was in the baptistery at Florence (now in the Bargello) a beautiful 15th-century niello pax of the See also:Coronation of the Virgin. The Abate See also:Gori, a savant and connoisseur of the See also:mid-century, had claimed this conjecturally for the work of Finiguerra; a later and still more enthusiastic virtuoso, the Abate Zani, discovered first, in the collection of See also:Count Seratti at See also:Leghorn, a sulphur cast from the very same niello (this cast is now in the See also:British Museum), and then, in the See also:National library at See also:Paris, a paper impression corresponding to both. Here, then, he proclaimed, was the actual material first-See also:fruit of Finiguerra's invention and See also:proof See also:positive of Vasari's accuracy. Zani's famous See also:discovery, though still accepted in popularart histories and museum guides, is now discredited among serious students. For one thing, it has been proved that the art of printing from engraved copper-plates had been known in See also:Germany, and probably in See also:Italy also, for years before the date of Finiguerra's alleged invention. For another, Maso's pax for the baptistery, if Cellini is to be trusted, represented not a Coronation of the Virgin but a Crucifixion. In the next See also:place, its recorded See also:weight does not at all agree with that of the pax claimed by Gori and Zani to be his. Again, and perhaps this is the strongest See also:argument of any, all See also:authentic records agree in representing Finiguerra as a See also:close See also:associate in art and business of Antonio Pollaiuolo. Now nothing is more marked than the See also:special See also:style of Pollaiuolo and his group; and nothing is more unlike it than the style of the Coronation pax, the designer of which must obviously have been trained in quite a different school, namely that of Filippo See also:Lippi. So this seductive See also:identification has to be abandoned, and we have to look elsewhere for traces of the real work of Finiguerra. The only fully authenticated specimens which exist are the above-mentioned tarsia figures, over See also:half life-See also:size, executed from his cartoons for the sacristy of the duomo. But his hand has lately been conjecturally recognized in a number of other things first in a set of drawings of the school of Pollaiuolo at the Uffizi, some of which are actually inscribed " Maso Finiguerra " in a 17th-century See also:writing, probably that of Baldinucci himself; and secondly in a very curious and important book of nearly a See also:hundred drawings by the same hand; acquired in 1888 for the British Museum. The Florence See also:series depicts for the most See also:part figures of the studio and the See also:street, to all See also:appearance members of the artist's own See also:family and workshop, drawn See also:direct from life. The museum See also:volume, on the other hand, is a picture-See also:chronicle, drawn from See also:imagination, and representing parallel figures of sacred and profane history, in a See also:chronological series from the Creation to See also:Julius See also:Caesar, dressed and accoutred with inordinate richness according to the See also:quaint pictures which Tuscan popular See also:fancy in the mid-15th century conjured up to itself of the See also:ancient See also:world. Except for the See also:differences naturally resulting from the difference of subject, and that the one series are done from life and the other from imagination, the technical style and handling of the two are identical and betray unmistakably a See also:common origin. Both can be dated with certainty, from their style, costumes, &c., within a few years of 146o. Both agree strictly with the accounts of Finiguerra's drawings left us by Vasari and Baldinucci, and disagree in no respect with the See also:character of the inlaid figures of the sacristy. That the draughtsman was a goldsmith is proved on every See also:page of the picture-chronicle by his skill and extravagant delight in the ornamental parts of design—chased and jewelled cups, helmets, See also:shields, breastplates, scabbards and the like,—as well as by the symmetrical metallic forms into which he instinctively conventionalizes See also:plants and See also:flowers. That he was probably also an engraver in niello appears from the fact that figures from the Uffizi series of drawings are repeated among the rare See also:anonymous Florentine niello prints of the time (the See also:chief collection of which; formerly belonging to the See also:marquis of See also:Salamanca, is now in the See also:cabinet of M. Edmond de See also:Rothschild in Paris). That he was furthermore an engraver on copper seems certain from the fact that the general style and many particular figures and features of the British Museum chronicle drawings are exactly repeated in some of those See also:primitive 15th-century Florentine prints which used to be catalogued loosely-under the names of Baldini or Botticelli, but have of See also:late years been classed more cautiously as anonymous prints in the " fine manner " (in contradistinction to another contemporary group of prints in the " broad manner " ). The fine-manner group of primitive Florentine engravings itself falls into two divisions, one more archaic, more vigorous and original than the other, and consisting for the most part of larger and more important prints. It is this See also:division which the drawings of the Chronicle series most closely resemble; so closely as almost to compel the conclusion that drawings and engravings are by the same hand. The later division of fine-manner prints represent a certain degree of technical advance from the earlier, and are
softer in style, with elements of more classic See also:grace and playfulness; their motives moreover are seldom. original, but are borrowed from various See also:sources, some from See also:German engravings, some from Botticelli or a designer closely akin to him, some from the pages of the British Museum Chronicle-book itself, with a certain softening and attenuating of their rugged spirit; as though the book, after the See also:death of the original draughtsman-engraver, had remained in his workshop and continued to be used by his successors. We thus find ourselves in presence of a draughtsman of the school of Pollaiuolo, some of whose drawings See also:bear an ancient attribution to Finiguerra, while all agree with what is otherwise known of him, and one or two are exactly repeated in extant works of niello, the See also:craft which was peculiarly his own; others being intimately related to the earliest or all but the earliest works of Florentine engraving, the kindred craft which tradition avers him to have practised, and which Vasari erroneously believed him to have invented. Surely, it has been confidently argued, this draughtsman must be no other than the true Finiguerra himself. The argument has not yet been universally .accepted, but neither has any competent See also:criticism appeared to shake it; so that it may be regarded for the See also:present as holding the See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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