“Michel, more than mortal / Divine angel.” Michelangelesque echoes in the collections of the Museo Ginori

In his Thoughts on the Imitation of Art (1755), Johann Joachim Winckelmann defined Michelangelo as the “[…] modern Phidias, the greatest after the Greeks.” The Manifattura di Doccia was not indifferent to the eighteenth-century exaltation of the artist’s genius. In the Inventory of Models (circa 1791-1806), The Madonna della Scala, The Deposition, and “two termini” appear, later identified as the allegorical figures placed on either side of the monuments of Giuliano Duke of Nemours and Lorenzo Duke of Urbino, executed by Buonarroti between 1520 and 1534 for the Segrestia Nuova of the Florentine Basilica of San Lorenzo.

Around the mid-1750s, the Manifattura di Doccia created porcelain reductions of these figures. Those of Twilight and Dawn appear in the monumental fireplace made in 1754 for the Gallery of the old headquarters of the manufactory, now in the collections of the Museo Ginori. Another version of Twilight is instead kept at the Musei del Castello Sforzesco in Milan, while other depictions of Night and Dawn were assembled, together with the bronze reduction of the Michelangelesque monument to Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, executed by Ferdinand Barbedienne, on a clock belonging to the collection of Marquis Emanuele Tapparelli d’Azeglio and dating to around 1858. 

The four Michelangelesque allegorical figures, in a biscuit variant and mounted on a tall porcelain base, continued to be produced at Doccia even between the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, as evidenced by the presence of the blue mark with a “G” surmounted by a crown, visible on the specimens preserved at the Museo Ginori.

At the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, when preparations were beginning in Florence for the fourth centenary of Michelangelo’s birth, the Manifattura di Doccia returned to the theme of the celebrations by exhibiting, set within roundels, four relief busts in maiolica depicting Luca della Robbia, Benvenuto Cellini, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci, designed by the sculptor Raffaello Pagliaccetti.

The Museo Ginori preserves three of these four roundels which were probably prototypes, as suggested by the different surface treatments—white monochrome on a blue background for the bust of Luca Della Robbia, and polychrome, with the faces left ‘natural’ (in unglazed terracotta) for those of Leonardo and Michelangelo.

At the end of the nineteenth century, this series was used to decorate – together with other busts added in 1916 – the façade of the former Manifattura Ginori headquarters, which today houses the Ernesto Ragionieri Library of Sesto Fiorentino. 

Outside the chorus of tributes to the “Florentine genius,” the manufactory also celebrated Michelangelo’s greatness through a vase presented at the London Exhibitions (1888) and the Palermo Exhibition (1891), now preserved at the Museo Ginori. On the upper part of its body, the vase features allegorical figures taken from the aforementioned tombs of the Sagrestia Nuova of San Lorenzo, topped by two medallions, one on each side, within which are inscribed the head of David and the portrait of Michelangelo. Opposite the latter, on the mouth of the vase, a cartouche is reproduced bearing the inscription “Michel, più che mortal / Angel divino,” an Ariostean rhyme taken from the thirty-third canto of the Orlando Furioso (1516).

The fortune of Michelangelo in the manufactory's production extends into the twentieth century, interpreted with a new sentiment. A fine example of this new approach is a small plaque preserved at the Museo Ginori, made by Elena Diana (active in Doccia from 1924 to around 1949 and again from 1961) in gold graffito with an agate point, featuring a detail from the Tondo Doni. Revealing a genuine interest in the depiction of parental affection rather than the staging of a Holy Family, the work clearly expresses this new sensitivity.

• R. Balleri, Pietà Bandini, in «Amici di Doccia-Quaderni», XIV, 2021, pp. 35-38.
• M. Marini, C. Giometti, Il Camino del marchese, in La fabbrica della bellezza. La Manifattura Ginori e il suo popolo di statue, Firenze 2017, pp. 69-75.
• R. Balleri, Echi del genio di Michelangelo nella manifattura di Doccia dal Settecento al Novecento, in L’immortalità di un mito. L’eredità di Michelangelo nelle arti e negli insegnamenti accademici a Firenze dal Cinquecento alla contemporaneità, exhibition catalog curated by S. Bellesi, F. Petrucci, Firenze 2014, pp. 95-100.