Damiano Anedda

Ivory elephant of Bargello National Museum’s Islamic Hall

Among the several pieces of Carrand collection owned by Bargello National Museum in Florence, some ivory handmades have a particular interest, like an elephant-shaped piece of the chess game. Bargello’s ivory elephant is likely the most ancient piece of Florentine National Museum’s chess collection. The article goes over the scientific literature about this work and suggests comparisons with coeval works.

Roberta Cruciata

Blessed Agostino Novello in decorative arts and artistic culture of 14^th-19^th centuries between Tuscany and Sicily

Agostino Novello’s fame of holiness, agostinian Blessed about whose origins have been handed down conflicting news during centuries, dates back to not many years after his death, happened in Siena on May 19, 1309. This is evident, considering tuscan and sicilian artistic production, particularly those of Siena and Termini regarding to him, flourishing in a span of time included between 14^th and 19^th century.

Dora Liscia

Enamels of XV century in the baptistry of Florence’s silver altar

The enamels of San Giovanni’s altar in Florence are examples of an absolute interest to integrate florentine enamel factory’s history, unfortunately lacking and full of blanks. Because of this, seeing how some schemes were shared by  goldsmithry, painting and sculpture becomes a further step ahead to understand how arts in Florence in XV^th century were perfectly integrated among themselves and free from the hierarchy of genres that will characterize the following centuries.

Sergio Intorre

Wooden sculpture in Naro

Naro, town of ancient origins, particularly flourishing since the Middle Age, is characterized in centuries by a massive presence of the main monastic and conventual orders, linked in a special way to the Friars Minors’ sphere. Their commissioning produced in time the aggregation of a considerable number of works, most of all in wood, which still represent a precious evidence of the evolution of sicilian wooden sculpture’s artistic language through centuries. The article proposes a survey of the main specimens of this kind of artistic production in Naro.

Giovanni Travagliato

Two embroidered altar clothes by Giovanni Rassarelli alias Fiorentino for the Chapel of the Crucified in Palermo’s Cathedral

Thanks to two documents published in this article, the author ascribes two altar clothes stored in the Treasure of Palermo’s Cathedral, coming from the movables concerning the chapel of the Crucified, to Giovanni Rassarelli. One of them is identified as the one embroidered with coral, which is part of the Treasure’s current exhibition.

Elvira D’Amico – Mauro Sebastianelli

Two unpublished pasted threads little pictures by Marianna Elmo

The article studies two little pictures by the embroiderer from Lecce Marianna Elmo, recently acquired by a Palermo’s private collection. The works have been realized likely round the half of XVIII^th century. The authors propose an historic-artistic analysis and a technical study of the handmade.

Cristina Costanzo

Chicago and the tradition of decorative glasses: Louis Comfort Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright

Importing in America the knowledge the European masters had cultivated the tradition of glass working with, Tiffany contributed to extend the use of glass for decorative purposes to reach a larger and larger market. Thanks to Tiffany indeed decorative innovations become emblem of a style and symbol of a nation. Through the analysis of Tiffany and Wright’s figures it’s possible to outline the features of the american cultural climate and of the renewed attention for decorative arts which closes XIX^th century and opens XX^th.

Ivana Bruno

Sicilian textiles of norman-suevian age in collections and expositions between 19^th and 20^th century

The fortune of norman art in 19^th century fully revealed itself in every field of art. The contributions about its effects on the applied arts field are rare. One of the possible observatories to develop such research surely is the analysis of the collecting phenomenon. Here the argument relative to textile handmades is faced with this perspective, going on with the researches already started by the author on the occasion of the exhibition Nobiles Officinae. Perle, filigrane e trame di seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo, curated by Maria Andaloro.

Iolanda Di Natale

Giuseppe Agnello’s contribution to the study of decorative arts in Sicily

Giuseppe Agnello doesn’t turn out as a figure easily referable to certain categories. His contribution to the development of local artistic system is more meaningful and sharp, just in function of the deep knowledge he owned of the regional art, like of the national and the international. During his long career, Agnello dedicates a thick group of scientific in-depth studies to those forms of art, today defined “decorative” or “applied”, that, since the earliest years of study, seem to attract his attention.