Presentation in Faenza of the important volume edited by Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti and published by "La Mandragora", thanks to the support of CLAI.
The presentation of the volume will take place on Friday 20 May at 5pm at the Cinema Teatro Sarti in Faenza Gentile Fornarini, painter and potter from Faenza – Life and work in the account book of a Renaissance master, edited by Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti, with contributions by Lucio Donati, Valentina Mazzotti, Corina Mezzetti, M. Roberta Stanzani and Marcella Vitali, for the publishing house La Mandragora of Imola. At the event, open to the whole city , authorities and experts will be present.
“ The Imolesi Agricultural Workers' Cooperative, CLAI, is honoured to have supported this cultural operation on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of our unique enterprise – specifies Giovanni Bettini, President of CLAI –, unique for the values that have characterized its path since its inception, men and women committed to building a truly cooperative enterprise, with the individual, the member, and their desire for happiness, which also includes a love of culture and beauty, at the center of its actions.
"This work is an original contribution of the highest value to the Faenza community," Bettini continues, "revealed through the reconstruction of the human adventure of Gentile Fornarini, a Renaissance master. We must therefore give credit to Dr. Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti for combining her internationally recognized specific knowledge and scientific expertise in artistic ceramics with a remarkable dose of courage and tenacity, which I had the privilege of personally appreciating, in undertaking such a challenging undertaking as the publication of this work, which the scholar, Curator Emeritus of the International Museum of Ceramics (MIC), dedicates to the City of Faenza."
Faenza, in addition to timeless majolica masterpieces, can boast an extraordinary, if not unique, Renaissance document: the account book (“vacchetta”) by Gentile di Antonio Fornarini, a painter and potter active in the second half of the 15th century.
Its complete publication has been awaited for years by scholars of the subject, and today this monographic volume, of no less than 337 pages, offers a photographic reproduction of the original in an almost facsimile format and the related critical edition, accompanied by explanatory notes.
In addition to these fundamental aspects, the work, divided into two parts, is accompanied, in the first, by some contributions that aim to connect the figure of the master with the context of the city of Faenza in the second half of the 15th century, as well as providing a cross-section of the everyday life of a craftsman in the second half of the 15th century, shedding light, so to speak, on the family side of his life.
First, information on the manuscript's acquisition by the Library of the International Museum of Ceramics is presented (Valentina Mazzotti); followed by a profile of Faenza's artistic culture in the second half of the 15th century (Marcella Vitali); then, the artistic culture is expanded with a portrait of Faenza and its surrounding countryside (Lucio Donati). This first part concludes with two contributions (Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti), contextual essays that focus not only on the figure of the potter of the time, but also on aspects of Gentile's daily life.
The second part of the volume, entirely devoted to the manuscript and its accompanying documentation (the heart of this work, which includes the photographic reproduction and transcription of the vacchetta), opens with a significant philological analysis (Corinna Mezzetti), followed by a photographic reproduction in near-facsimile format, which has the advantage of providing a visually authentic image of the original. The photographic reproduction is followed by a critical edition (Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti), structured with notes and contextual apparatus, to facilitate comprehension of the text and thus ensure a smooth reading.
This is followed by an Appendix (Lucio Donati and Carmen Ravanelli Guidotti), which gathers together several documents in chronological order to attest to the presence of Maestro Gentile and his relatives in the Faenza area at the time, and a Report on the manuscript's conservation and restoration (Roberta Stanzani). The volume concludes with a detailed set of analytical indexes.
A reading of the master Gentile's cowhide restores and consolidates the image of an independent artist, capable of dividing his time between painting and the applied arts, of a craftsman-merchant able to actively engage with his world of supply and demand, thus emblematically representing the versatile mentality of a master of the Italian Renaissance.
