EMBRIACHI (EMBRIACI). - A family of bone and ivory carvers active in Venice between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. BALDASSARRE is the most celebrated, and to him is attributed the magnificent altar retable in the sacristy of the Certosa of Pavia (1400–1409). The carved bone plaques are set close together and enclosed in wooden frames of different colours, inlaid in the characteristic manner known as «alla certosina». In the style of these ivories, carved with subjects now sacred, now secular, according to their intended use, the derivation from French Gothic ivories is evident, together with reflections of Tuscan art; indeed, documents attest Baldassarre’s stay in Florence before his family’s transfer to Venice.
Of the same family there are also remembered: ANDREA, ANTONIO, and GIOVANNI degli E., with their sons GERONIMO and LORENZO. The extremely extensive artistic production of these carvers (polyptychs, caskets, wall mirrors, etc.), scattered throughout almost all the collections and museums of the world, rightly suggests, rather than different personalities within a single workshop, various centres of production distributed throughout northern Italy.
Important collections of these ivories are preserved in the Museo Civico of Bologna, the National Museums of Florence and Ravenna, the Museo Correr of Venice, etc. - See pl. XXII.
BIBLI: J. von Schlosser, Die Werkstatt der E. in Venedig, in Jahrb. d. kumalist. Samml. d. Allerh. Kaiserl., 22 (1899), pp. 220–81; B. C. Kreplin, in Thieme-Becker, X, pp. 406–98 (with preceding bibliography); D. D. Egbert, North Italian Gotic Ivories, ecc., in Art Studies, 7 (1926), pp. 169–206. Mario Massaccesi