L'Argenteria Genovese del Settecento

by Boggero, Franco

• ISBN13: 9788842210689
• ISBN10: 8842210684
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-30
• Publisher: Antique Collectors Club Ltd

Summary

Starting from the Matricola de Maestri dell Arte de Fraveghi della Città di Genova, an index bound in vellum listing the master silversmiths enrolled during the period 1689-1710, this volume presents a systematic record of Ligurian gold and silversmiths active in the eighteenth century. Assereto, Croce, Pardes, Passano, Signorio, Cosso, Gianotto, Oxello: these are the most famous names among the fràveghi working in the city of Genoa, at that time Italy s principal silver market with clients from Spain, the French nobility and municipalities, and above all the great local aristocratic families, the Doria, the Spinola, the Pallavicini, the Brignole-Sale, and the Durazzo. During the eighteenth century, it was considered important to possess a silver object, even a mere fork, because it proved one belonged to the civil society of the rich and powerful. Exhibition of this luxury produced new types of object, not so much in religious silverware since liturgical functions remained unaltered, but in that employed in private residences, where banquets and society events needed new rites for self-celebration. Under the French Revolution, huge amounts of Genoese ecclesiastical silverware was requisitioned, triggering a process that led in 1824, thanks to Carlo Alberto s Royal Patents, to abolishing the hallmark - a tower - that had distinguished Genoese silverware for centuries. The corporation of fràveghi managed to survive without their hallmark for a further twenty years. As well as the catalogue of religious and secular silverware, the volume contains a silversmith s dictionary, a list of hallmarks, consuls, markers and assayers of the mint, and an index of places. Text in Italian.