Resumen de Vocazione e prime esperienze di Antonio di Cristoforo e Niccolò Baroncelli, scultori fiorentini a Ferrara
Antonio di Cristoforo and Niccolò Baroncelli are the Florentine creators of the bronze equestrian statue of the Marquis niccolò III d’Este, made between 1443 and 1451 which are placed over a small arch in the Cathedral square in Ferrara. The work, which was destroyed by Naspoleon’s troops in 1796, marked a milestone in the rebirth of the equestrian monument “all’antica” and its reputation among contemporaries is attested in a sonnet by Ciriaco d’Ancona (dedicated, as explained here, to Lionello d’Este). The names of the two sculptors then appear in Antonio Filarete’s Treatise on Architecture and, through the later, are mentioned in Vasari’s Vite. Due to the biographer’s misunderstanding, here they are defined as pupils of Filipp Brunelleschi, an error which is then passed down to all subsequent references. Thanks to the discovery of new documents and a reinterpretation of others already known , the article clarifies the two artistsi training. Antonio di Cristoforo was a pupil and collaborator of Luca Della Robbia and his only confirmed work is a terracotta Madonna made in 1451 for the Cathedral of Ferrara, now housed in the Museum of Palazzo Schifanoia. Here, we propose to attribute a second sculpture of the same subject which is now in the Museo Diocesano in Milan but originally from a church in Costa di Rovigo, in the Po Delta area.
The unpublished statement submitted to the “Catasto” of Florence in 1427 provides new information on Niccolò Baroncelli: his date of birth (1408/1409), his father’s identity (coiner of money in Châlons-en-Champagne, wher he died in 1419 and where he is also buried) and specially his apprenticeship with Donatello, with whom he was living at that time. The article then traces with clarification and proposals, the catalogue of Baroncelli, active in Padua from 1434 to 1442 and in Ferrara from 1443 to his death in 1453. A document is published in the appendix that testifies to the presence of the painter Giovanni Boccati da Camerino alongside Baroncelli in Padua in 1435.
