Italian Inlaid Marble Tabletop

An Italian
Inlaid Marble
Tabletop
Rome, circa 1575

A later 16th century, Italian
commesso tabletop, with
geometric border framing
strapwork, including four ovals
in antique alabastro fiorito. The
large, central oval is in antique
Egyptian alabaster.

An Italian Inlaid Marble Tabletop
Rome, circa 1575
In Rome, by the middle of the 16th century, the predominant style of
decorative inlaid stonework – opus sectile (cut stone) – employed across
one and a half millenia, since the time of Augustus, was in need of some
refreshing. Beginning about 1550 “a new manner emerged, influenced
by ancient examples and marked by a wider and more colorful range of
marbles, in arrangements still predominantly geometric but now usually
incorporating scrolls, cartouches, peltate forms, multiple borders, and
oval rather than circular centres, regularly of richly figured alabasters”,
from Roman Splendour, English Arcadia; Jervis and Dodd.
Interestingly, while this method was applied to wall surfaces, floors,
and some decorative arts, a predominant use, and the most creative,
was with impressive tabletops, always undertaken for the most
wealthy, discerning clients, including a range of royalty, church figures,
various Medicis, and others. Why were these marble inlaid tables so
popular with this crowd? These objects were among the most visually
ostentatious a Duke, Cardinal, merchant or political figure might
possess – relatively large, very skillfully and intricately crafted, fashioned
in the richest palette of stones. These stones, including many of the
rarest colors and patterns, were gathered from the ruins of ancient
Rome, where they had been brought, a milennia and a half before, from
the far reaches of the empire. These tables include stones originally
quarried in Greece, Egypt, Tunisia, as well as present day Italy. In the
16th century (and later), ownership of commesso tables brought with it
an explicit connection to Imperial Rome at the zenith of its power.
While the phenomenon of this type of stone inlay craft began in Rome,
by the beginning of the 17th century, many of its artisans were equally
at home in Florence; and there was a good deal of traffic in materials,
products, and artisans between the two cities. Those fashioning
ultra-opulent tabletops were not the quaint craftsmen we might imagine
today. Among the earliest was Jean Menard (1525 – 1582), described
as a “franciosetto” – little Frenchman. History records that in 1568 he
was involved in a knife fight at the Florentine home of his acquaintance,
Michelangelo.
Opposite - Detail, later 17th century Italian commesso tabletop.

Soon enough, Florence developed its own variation of this decorative
craft, employing figural decoration – plants, trophies, etc. –
supplementing the more rigorously geometric design characteristic of
Roman work.
The design of the table described here adheres to that earlier, Roman
approach. And yet, as we shall see, it is closely related to another,
almost certainly later, inlaid marble top which also exhibits Florentine
characteristics.
Our table is 58.625” x 44.5”. It includes a marble edge similar to
portoro, but which may be giallo e nero antico, a not quite identical
stone whose quarrying began earlier. Inside this is a band of repeating
geometric ornament in a variety of stones including carrara, bianco
e nero antico, at least three different types of brecciated marbles –
traccagnini, corallina, and possibly diaspro tenero di Sicilia - as well as
alabasters, including pecorella.
This repeating ornament frames a large rectangle, featuring curvilinear
“strapwork” in giallo antico with accents in rosso antico, alabastro fiorito,
and a white stone with diffuse red veining which is, so far, unidentified.
The strapwork outlines sections of africano marble, and four ovals in
alabastro fiorito, and surrounds a field of verde antico, which further
frames a thin oval band of nero antico. Inside this is the table’s
center-piece, a semi-transparent/translucent oval of antique Egyptian
alabaster, perhaps alabastro cotognini.
The underside of the table is a single stone slab of peperino, running to
the edge of the molded band of giallo e nero antico. This slab, though
antique, may postdate the marble inlay work.
The effect, of course is very, very grand.
Provocatively, our table is remarkably similar to one now in Florence’s
Villa del Poggio Imperiale, and before that, in the city’s Palazzo Pitti,
both places with intimate connections to Ferdinando de Medici.
Opposite above - Similar tabltetop currently in the Villa del Poggio Imperiale,
Florence.
Opposite below - Similar tabletop, on a later base, in Il Perestilio, Villa del
Poggio Imperiale

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Ferdinando I’s attention was
seized by this new style of stone inlay-work, and especially by these
types of tables. He commissioned several and owned others. In 1588, he
founded Florence’s Opificio delle Pietre Dure (workshop of hardstones)
for the purpose of producing this type of decorative work for important
projects, and training skilled artisans. Originally opened in the city’s
Casino Mediceo, the workshop later moved to the Uffizi gallery.
The Poggio Imperiale table, illustrated in Annamerie Guisti’s La
Marquetrie de Pieres Dures, is very slightly smaller – 54.375” x 41”. Its
decorative scheme, though, is identical, with a perimeter molded edge;
repeating geometric border, framing a rectangular panel divided by
strapwork; and featuring, at its center, a large oval of rare alabaster. Its
materials differ somewhat and, most significantly, its strapwork frames
various figural motives, including flowers and vegetal forms, as well as
musical and military tropies.
The differences between the two tables roughly correspond, of course, to
the differences between Roman and Florentine work in this period.
It has been suggested that the table described here predates that at the
Poggio Imperiale, whose date is given as late 16th/early 17th century.
This might point in the direction of our table dating to c. 1575, or so.
Our ongoing research efforts to determine the designer, maker,
commissioner, and original owner of this table have not yet borne fruit.
However, with the close similarities of the Poggio Imperiale and our
tables, and reasonable surmises regarding their dates, it seems likely
that ours was, in some way, preparatory to that at Poggio Imperiale.
Additionally given that table’s history of being shuttled between the
Villa and Palazzo Pitti, both renovated nearly simultaneously by
Ferdinand I, and his keen interest in this form of marble inlay work,
it would be surprising if the table described here was not associated in
some way with this Grand Duke of Tuscany.
For more about 16th and early 17th century Italian inlaid marble
tabletops, please see sales linked to here, here, here, and here.
Opposite - Detail, later 17th century Italian commesso tabletop.