Luca della Robbia 'the younger' (Florence 1475 - Paris 1548) Italian, Florence, circa 1521-1523

This type of sumptuous garland, modelled with pronounced naturalism and glazed with vivid and varied colors, would have framed an heraldic medallion or perhaps a Marian relief and would have alluded to “family or civic prosperity or to a virtuous life. Rich festoons and frameworks were typical of Della Robbia family workshop production from the mid-fifteenth century and were reinterpreted by various members of the family throughout the 16th century. 

This garland is resplendent with a variety of fruits, pine cones, cucumbers and poppy ovaries, interspersed with peas, ears of wheat, plums, garlic bulbs and wildflowers. This profusion of plants, however, is organized by a mathematical-geometric arrangement, according to the Albertian principle of “varietas'' governed by the “compositio” (composition). The larger fruits and vegetables are grouped in bunches of 10 and consist of five fruits of the same botanical species - arranged in two pairs followed by a single fruit in the center. The poppy capsules are distinctive, forming an autonomous bunch, and appear in pairs at the junction point of each bunch, and are an unusual addition. They indicate a connection to the well-known emblem of the Bartolini Salimbeni family for whom this wreath was made. Giancarlo Gentilini’s extensive contribution to the scholarship of the Della Robbia workshop allows us to ascribe some of the more decorative examples of their production to specific members of the family. 

In this case, the sophisticated and intricate modeling of the abundant mass of greenery together with the elegant and specific arrangement of the plants relates to the work of Luca della Robbia 'the younger' who collaborated with his father Andrea for several decades. He was particularly skilled at creating a uniquely decorative repertoire modelled with accuracy and naturalism, exemplified in the decorative elements in his sculpture including a series of medallions with Medici armorial devices from the Roman residence of Alessandro de 'Medici, now preserved in the Museum of Rome and in Castel Sant'Angelo, the elaborate ceramic floors, such as the one in the Chapel of Santa Caterina in San Silvestro al Quirinale decorated with Medici heraldic motifs, the precious 'antique' vases and ornamental baskets full of fruit and flowers. 

A particularly effective comparison, also for the considerable size and shape of the thick garland, is offered by the spectacular heraldic medallion with the Bartolini Salimbeni company preserved today in the Bargello Museum in Florence, where an equally luxuriant plant crown encircles the usual emblem of this family (three poppy capsules) linked to those of the Medici (three rings with diamond points, each crossed by three ostrich feathers). It is one of the most grandiose and rare documented works of Luca 'the younger', identifiable for typological, heraldic, stylistic and chronological reasons with one of the two medallions made for the very elegant, innovative building built by Baccio d'Agnolo for Giovanni Bartolini opposite Santa Trinita between February 1520 and May 1523. The Bartolini Salimbeni coat of arms, in the Bargello, was previously in the Torrigiani collection. Alan Marquand in 1919 (pp. 219-221, n. 279, fig. 202) and in 1920 (pp. 110-111, n. 113, fig. 62) reproduced a similar garland, there attributing it to Giovanni della Robbia around 1515, and noted that it belonged to the Marquis Torrigiani and kept in his palace in Florence. It was devoid of the heraldic device when Marquand published it (and was reused as a frame for a marble epigraph placed in 1878 by the sons of the Marquis Luigi in Palazzo Torrigiani Del Nero). Luigi Torrigiani had owned at least two large Della Robbia coats of arms with the Bartolini Salimbeni coat of arms, both of which were presented in 1861 at the Exhibition of Art Objects of the Middle Ages and the time of the Risorgimento dell' Arte in Florence in the Guastalla house. It is therefore probable that this family had come into possession of both coats of arms executed by Luca 'the younger' for Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni in Piazza Santa Trinita, perhaps around 1838-40 when the building was adapted to a luxury hotel, if not as early as 1559 when the Torrigiani family acquired the adjacent Bartolini Salimbeni palace in via Porta Rossa.

The present wreath, characterized by the inclusion of poppy ovaries, a peculiar emblem of the Bartolini Salimbeni, is therefore plausibly identifiable with one of the two medallions made by Luca 'the younger' in 1521 for the palace of Giovanni Bartolini in Santa Trinita and is certainly one of the two garlands with the family armorial device that belonged to the Marquis Luigi Torrigiani and exhibited by him in 1861. In fact, we can recognize it in an image illustrated by Marquand in 1919 and then in 1920, set into a wall and surrounded by a painted wreath. Between 1862 and 1919, only the heraldic medallion was presumably given or sold back to the Bartolini Salimbeni family.

We are grateful to Giancarlo Gentilini who kindly provided us with his research on this wreath which forms the basis of this entry.