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A Renaissance rarity Met Museum's restoration of a duke's private study shows off the masterful skills of Italian artisans Saturday, January 23, 1999 By Donald Miller, Post-Gazette Art and Architecture Critic
Not all superb rooms need to be large. In an age attracted to unusual wall treatments - faux marble and wood, for example - more people should know about one of the most fabulous decorative spaces in this country.
It's the reinstalled studiolo, or private study, from the palace of Federico da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino (1422-82), in Gubbio, a hill town in Umbria, northern Italy. The studiolo is on permanent display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, America's largest and most impressive repository of the past.
Put this trompe l'oeil masterpiece high on your list of musts for a visit to New York. I have viewed the panels several times since their reinstallation in 1996 and never fail to be amazed at their mastery. The Metropolitan purchased the studiolo, one of two known and the only one in this country, in 1939. Displayed until 1967, it was then dismantled and stored, remaining out of sight for almost 30 years.
"It has taken a team of extraordinary conservators and curators more than a decade to resurrect this astonishing humanist's environment," Met Director Philippe de Montebello said when the room reopened.
"To walk into this chamber is to witness firsthand the level of perfection attained by the celebrated woodworkers of Renaissance Florence. The Gubbio Studiolo is surely one of the great Renaissance masterpieces at the Met - indeed, in all of America and in any medium, for that matter."
The space is comprised of intricately inlaid wood panels that are superb examples of wall design and linear perspective. A frieze in Latin reads:
See how the eternal students of the venerable mother [knowledge], men exalted in learning and in genius, fall forward, suppliantly with bared neck and flexed knee, before the face of their parent. Their reverend piety prevails over justice and none repents for having yielded to his foster mother.
The work includes an elaborately painted and coffered ceiling.
The brilliant faux lattice panels, set at differing angles to accentuate the panels' virtuosic qualities, were installed between 1478-83 in the ducal palace, now a museum in Gubbio. They are remarkable examples of a woodworking technique called intarsia, surface decoration made by inlaying small pieces of wood - oak, cherry, pear and others - in specific patterns based on drawings. The technique is also known as wood mosaic.
The workshop of Giuliano da Maiano, one of the most celebrated Florentine intarsiatori of the 15th century, created the panels. The technique's popularity lasted about 200 years, with revivals in 19th- and 20th-century furniture.
The studiolo's perfect images were made with naturally colored wood in a wide range of colors. The panels create the illusion of an interior with open cupboards holding books as well as musical and scientific instruments. There's also Montefeltro's crest, parts of his armor and in a central panel, the prestigious symbol of the Order of the Garter, given by England's Edward IV in 1474.
There are good reasons why the Florentine artisans created this masterpiece. The new art of perspective intarsia came in the wake of Filippo Brunelleschi's rediscovery in the early 15th century of linear perspective (depth perception in two-dimensional surfaces). The new art was admired for its modern design and technical sophistication.
Such panels became famous and adorn a vestry in Florence's cathedral and Medici Palace. Small study rooms also once existed in the Vatican Palace, Rome. Intarsia may be seen here in the Italian Nationality Room, University of Pittsburgh, and in a Dutch inlaid chest-on-stand, Bruce Galleries, Carnegie Museum of Art.
The studiolo was made during Federico's expansion of the ducal palace in Gubbio, some distance south of Urbino. Federico, one of the most admired military leaders of his day, carried battlefield scars that show in his portrait. A slash across the bridge of his nose greatly altered his profile and destroyed an eye.
The most respected and highly paid condottiere (warlord) in Italy, the duke was also famous for his humanistic knowledge and understanding of architecture, mathematics and the arts. His acumen and reputation for fairness placed Federico in the center of Italian political life.
Federico built a large Renaissance palace at his capital, Urbino (1460-76). Its studiolo, celebrated as a marvel in its time, still exists. Above its panels a series of 28 portraits depicted famous men.
The duke then called for another such study for his renovated palace in Gubbio that was changed from a Gothic to a Renaissance residence. This private ducal study also had panel paintings devoted to the liberal arts above the inlaid wainscot. They are no longer with the studiolo at the Met.
The wood panels were removed to Florence in 1673. There, paneling and ceiling remained intact until Prince Filippo Massimo Lancellotti purchased them for his villa near Rome in 1874. The panels were restored between 1874 and '77 but never installed in the villa, remaining disassembled until 1937.
That's when Lancellotti's heirs sold them to German dealer Adolph Loewi, who moved them to his gallery in Venice, where they were again restored. Then they were shipped to New York, in care of Arnold Seligman, Rey & Co. The Met bought them in 1939 and installed them in 1941.
In its last restoration effort, the Met's conservation team was faced with the problem of removing and replacing earlier restorers' deteriorating work. Guided by chief conservator Antoine Wilmering, the Met's team, also made an X-ray discovery: Luigi Rizzo, Lancellotti's restorer, placed a note of 1877 in a hidden picket in one of the studiolo's doors.
A scholarly book on the studiolo by Wilmering and Olga Raggio, chairman, department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, has been published through the generosity of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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