Palazzo de'Rossi. Una storia pistoiese

circolare multicolore, di riferimento classico 245 . In ogni campo trapezoidale è raffigurato al
centro un esile tempietto, con all’interno la figurina in finto bronzo di una divinità grecoromana,
affiancato da eroti cavalcanti animali fantastici. Ai due lati della sottile e orizzontale
base d’appoggio di ciascuna edicola sono collocati tripodi antichi accesi, posti su preziosi
panni trapezoidali ricamati, pendenti (fig. 93).
Lungo i lati maggiori d’imposta della volta ribassata si trova al centro di ognuno una lunetta,
simmetrica rispetto all’altra di fronte, dove è raffigurato un nervoso cavallo purosangue (fig.
94). Sulle testate minori del perimetro sono dipinti pittoreschi “paesini” nei sottarchi.
La presenza dei ‘ritratti’ dei due cavalli scalpitanti – che non sembra avere un nesso logico evidente
rispetto alle “grottesche” che caratterizzano il soffitto – è sicuramente intenzionale e si
deve, a mio avviso, ad una precisa richiesta del committente: che non può che essere Francesco
dei Rossi, di cui si conosce la passione fin dalla giovinezza per quelle nobili cavalcature 246 .
Colpisce, comunque, un particolare decorativo in quel dipinto “alla raffaella”: quel bizzarro
panno ricamato, a doppio trapezio ripiegato in due, pendente dal piano d’appoggio di ciascuno
dei due tripodi accesi che affiancano ogni tempietto in quelle “grottesche”. Un uguale
motivo si trova nell’impresa ornamentale realizzata già nel 1786 da Luigi Catani nella Stanza
della Badessa del Conservatorio di San Clemente a Prato 247 (fig. 95).
Ciò rimanda non solo alla cultura artistica acquisita dal Catani nel periodo della sua formazione
e prima maturazione, ma anche al diffondersi, attraverso la Scuola d’ornato granducale e la
relativa manualistica, dei motivi fantastici e bizzarri recuperati sia dalla Domus aurea neroniana
a Roma, fin dal Rinascimento, sia dai più recenti rinvenimenti pompeiani ed ercolanensi 248 .
Tale tipo di decorazione degli interni di rappresentanza ebbe grande fortuna, prolungandosi per buona
parte dell’Ottocento 249 . Il pistoiese Ferdinando Marini, vissuto fino al 1863 250 , eccelse in questa
tecnica ornamentale, lasciandone testimonianza in vari edifici importanti in Pistoia e suo territorio 251 .
Il soffitto dipinto della “galleria nuova” presenta comunque, a mio avviso, un evidente rima-
94. “Galleria a grottesche”, particolare dei dipinti,
lunetta laterale, Cavallino scalpitante. Attribuibile
al completamento pittorico della sala, eseguito da
Ferdinando Marini nel 1815..
93. Particolare della illustrazione precedente, con campo
trapezoidale ornato a “grottesche”. Attri buito a Nicola
Monti, seconda metà del 1812 – inizi 1813.
acquainted with one another in 1814 and that there was probably a relationship of trust
between them, seeing that it lasted over time.
The Restoration had brought years of peace and quiet; “liberal” intellectuals were able to
express their ideas in the academies and in education in general; some of them were members
of secret societies. 238
Francesco dei Rossi had in the meantime acquired prestige and esteem with the grand-ducal
government: on March 17, 1815, Ferdinand III had bestowed on him the title of “court chamberlain,”
which he still held on March 14, 1827, under the new grand duke Leopold II (1824-59). 239
However, the renovations and alterations carried out at his behest in the family residence
from the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th onward, his marriage in 1801
and the standard of living that he wished to go on being in keeping with his rank, even after
that, had left him up to his ears in debt. 240 In the meantime, the departure of his brother
Giulio from Pistoia to take up the post of bishop of Pescia, in 1804, 241 had made available the
two western “quarters,” on the second and third floor of the building respectively. 242
Francesco had had a new “gallery” (fig. 91) built in the western apartment of the piano nobile,
a twin to the one that had been created for his parents’ “quarters” in the first phase of
construction, above the stable. The intervention, made in 1812, seems to have been the only
one since 1802, and is the last mentioned by Canon Tommaso in his Taccuino, where he also
informs us that the Pistoian artist Bartolomeo Valiani had been commissioned at the time to
paint a richly ornamented mock stone molding on the outside of the new volume. 243
So the decoration of the vault of the “new gallery” with “grotesques” (figs. 92-94, 96) could
not have been done before the date on which the new structure was completed, at the end
of July 1812. The name of the painter who executed it—who cannot have been the young
Bartolomeo Valiani, otherwise Canon Tommaso would not have failed to mention it—and
the date on which it was done do not filter through the web of omissions, which at this point
have to be considered intentional, by our source.
The work is not signed or dated, unlike the later paintings, on the piano nobile, of the cycle
executed between 1824 and 1831 by Bartolomeo Valiani himself, Nicola Monti again and
Giuseppe Bezzuoli. 244
On the vault of the new “gallery” a large hexagonal frame, heavily underlined by a frieze
around the perimeter of mock gilt embroidery and set at the center of the ceiling, contains
an allegory of Justice as a female figure accompanied by the attributes of her function and her
authority, flanked by a putto holding a scroll on which are written the words “ius suum / [uni]
cuique tribu[ere]” (fig. 96). This element separates and at the same time links two symmetrical
areas, each of which is made up of three identical trapezoids housing “grotesques,” united on
the shorter base by a square frame containing a multicolored circular velarium, of classical
inspiration. 245 At the center of each trapezoidal field is represented a small shrine housing the
mock bronze figurine of a Greco-Roman deity, flanked by erotes riding fantastic animals. At
the sides of the slender and horizontal base of each shrine are set flaming ancient tripods,
placed on precious embroidered trapezoidal pieces of cloth overhanging the edges (fig. 93).
In the middle of each of the longer sides of the base of the depressed vault is located a
lunette, symmetrical to the one opposite, in which a vigorous thoroughbred horse is depicted
(fig. 94). At the short ends of the perimeter picturesque “landscapes” are painted on the
underside of the arches.
The presence of the “portraits” of two horses pawing the ground—which have no apparent
logical connection with the “grotesques” on the ceiling—is undoubtedly intentional and is
the result, in my view, of a precise request on the part of the client: who cannot be anyone but
Francesco dei Rossi, known to have had a passion for such noble mounts since his youth. 246
There is, however, a striking decorative detail in that “Raphaelesque” painting: that bizarre
piece of embroidered cloth, in the shape of a double trapezoid folded in two and hanging
from the base of each of the two flaming tripods that flank each of the shrines in those
“grotesques.” A similar motif can be seen in the ornamental device Luigi Catani had painted
100 101