The Table of the Muses and the art of semiprecious-stone inlay
Video in Italian | A masterpiece by Aristodemo Costoli and Giovan Battista Giorgi with a base by Giovanni Dupré
Do you know the technique of semiprecious-stone inlay?
A typically Florentine long-tradition art consisting in assembling stones of different colours and sizes in order to realize astounding compositions.
A technique that requires specialized workers and that is still handed down today, at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the illustrious Institute established in the 1500s by Ferdinando I de' Medici.
In the Castagnoli Room of Pitti Palace is a gorgeous examples of inlay, the so called "Table of the Muses".
A monumental work started by Aristodemo Costoli and Giovan Battista Giorgi in the 1830s, with a sumptuous
base realized by Giovanni Dupré in the 1850s and the final bronze casting by Clemente Papi. A table that required a lot of different craftsmen, workers and artists to be realized.
It found its current location in Pitti Palace in 1855, in an appropriate interplay with the early 19th-century decorative motifs on the walls frescoed by Giuseppe Castagnoli.
