G. Centrodi - Abstract

This research has led to identification of the goldsmith and silversmith “maestro” author of the golden chalice that the Bishop Luigi Gherardi donated to the Cathedral of Cortona in 1749 when he came definitively back from Città di Castello where he attended, as apostolic delegate appointed by Sacra Rituum Congregatio, the canonization process of the capuchin sister Veronica Giuliani.

He is Michelangelo Ambrogioli (Viterbo 1680 - Roma 1760), goldsmith and silversmith licensed maestro in Rome, whose we knew only four works, two kept in Rome and two in Matelica, province of Macerata, in the local Museum Piersanti (these latter are rich of precious materials as lapis lazuli).

The cortonese chalice, besides to enrich his catalogue, is the first known masterpiece in gold of the maestro. It is characterized by a refined and sophisticated monumentality so as to appear as a small gold architecture in which the elements – tympanum, mantelpieces, frames, cartouches and shell-shaped niches, besides cherubs – have been realized with rare and extraordinary skill with the techniques of embossing and chasing.

This artefact was born in that exceptional cultural context called revival borrominiano, began in 1794 when Giovanni Giardini from Forlì, considered the most important silversmith at that time, published in collaboration with the engraver Massimiliano Limpach from Prague, the models catalogue for silversmiths, designed by himself and inspired by Borromini, under the title of “ Disegni diversi…” and dedicated to Pope Clemente XI Albani from Urbino; a few years later they were re-discovered and the projects and designs of the great artist from Ticino were published (Opus architectonicum 1720-1725).

Starting from the beginning of the Eighteenth century up to all the Sixties of the same (from the pontificate of Clemente XI Albani up to that of Clemente XIII Rezzonico) the roman silversmiths had their maximum period of splendour thanks to the exceptional commission for the so-called Tesoro di Lisbona (1742-1747) that they received by the King John V of Portugal (under the pontificate of Pope Benedetto XIV Lambertini).