An Italian Inlaid Marble Tabletop

An Italian Inlaid Marble Tabletop Rome, circa 1575

A later 16th century, Italian inlaid marble 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 (a species of cut stone mosaicwork) – 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” - Roman Splendour, English Arcadia.

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. The tables include stones originally quarried in Greece, Egypt, Tunisia, as well as present day Italy. In the 16th century (and later), ownership of inlaid marble tables brought to their owners 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 artisans, materials, and products 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 “Il Franciosini” – the 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 inlaid marble 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 I de’Medici.

Too, at least one tabletop at the Villa Poggio Imperiale was previously among the furnishings of the Villa Medici in Rome. “In 1576, Ferdinando I de’Medici purchased (Cardinal Giovanni) Ricci’s splendid villa on the Pincio, and embellished it to become Villa Medici ....

Inventories of the Villa Medici taken in 1588 to 1598 record the presence there of six pietre dure tables indubitably Roman, and probably a combination of his own commissions and others taken over from Ricci. Two have been identified, one in the Sala di Venere at the Palazzo 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

A composite photograph, with the studied table to the left, the Poggio Imperiale table to the right. (Note: dimensions of the latter have been very slightly adjusted so that the perimeter of the two images align). The photograph illustrates both the design similarities and differences of the two works, as well as the multiple adjustments to the Poggio Imperiale table made to accomodate the significantly larger center oval.

Pitti and another at the Villa del Poggio Imperiale, possibly that made

by Menard using the transparent alabaster acquired by Ricci in about 1564 ...” - Roman Splendour, English Arcadia.

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 Palazzo degli Uffizi.

The Poggio Imperiale table, illustrated in Annameria 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 tabletops roughly illustrate, at least as clearly as any other pair of works, the differences between Roman and Florentine marble inlay design 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.

Professor Enrico Colle has shown that the table now at Poggio Imperiale was previously in Florence’s Palazzo Pitti, another Medici domicile in this period. With Ferdinando I de’Medici’s 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 inlaid marble tabletop.