REPOUSSÉ WORK. - The working of wrought iron, that is, of hammered, embossed and carved iron, with artistic intent, had its first diffusion in France, Germany and Spain around the 12th century. Already the earliest works, highly ornate and exuberant, demonstrate the degree of perfection reached by this craft. Remarkable examples date back to that period, such as the gates of the cathedral of Puy in France and those of the abbey of Marcevals in Spain; from a century later are the splendid doors of Notre-Dame in Paris and of the cathedral of St-Gilles in the Vendée (v. CANCELLO).
In Italy the use of iron as an element of decoration became established only in the 14th century, with very remarkable works such as the railings of S. Corona in Vicenza, those of the Scaliger Tombs in Verona and others, especially in Tuscany, where the employment of wrought iron underwent a very notable development throughout the 14th and 15th centuries.
The documents speak of the Sienese Conte di Lello who, with his son Jacopo, hammered in 1337-38 the railings for the cathedral of Orvieto, and of Pietruccio di Betto who,
also in 1338, was working at S. Miniato al Monte in Florence, as well as of numerous other craftsmen, greatly
active in the Tuscan cities. At Siena, in 1360, a Frenchman, Bertino di Pietro, of Rouen in Normandy, was building
a first public clock; later, in 1384, he hammered out the railings for the Cathedral, adapting the
native florid and exuberant taste to the gentle
Sienese tradition.
(Ist. Alinari)
At Florence, the craftsmen of wrought iron, united in the guild
of blacksmiths as early as the 13th century, made objects
of practical use such as lanterns, small bells, torch-holders and
lanterns, among which those, celebrated also
by Vasari, that Niccolò Caparra hammered out for the Strozzi, today at Palazzo
Guadagni.
From the Gothic experiments, in which the jagged
ornaments in wrought iron were more easily incorporated, one
then passed to the more serene Renaissance forms. One may recall, among
others, the railing of the Castelli Chapel in S. Petronio at Bologna, of 1483.
In the sixteenth century the decoration was still more
sober, in accordance with the inspiration of the architecture of Bramante,
of the Sangallo, of Michelangelo, of Vignola, of Sansovino, etc.
Decorative abundance, on the other hand, regained vigor in
the Baroque era with an exuberance analogous to that of the
Gothic period, especially north of the Alps. Parapets were built for balconies and windows (magnificent
examples of which are to be cited in the houses of Siena, Lucca, Genoa, and
Venice, those of the synagogue at Padua, etc.), extremely rich
iron grilles such as those of the Bertoliniana Library at
Vicenza, of the Palazzo Aldovrandi at Bologna, of the former convent of S. Maria in Gradi at Viterbo, of the Palazzo Salvadego at Brescia, of the churches of the Missione and of S. Francesco at Turin.
Baroque and Rococo wrought iron follows the same convolutions
of architecture and ornamental sculpture and directly participates with them
in the decorative effect of the whole.
Even in the minor arts wrought iron had in those centuries
a vast repertoire, which asserted itself above all in the making of objects of ecclesiastical furnishings such as pa-liotti (that of the Certosa del Galluzzo near Florence),
candelabra, torch-holders, torches, processional
lanterns, etc.
In the 19th and 20th centuries the use of wrought iron declined and only
sporadically were there, in Italy and abroad, brief artisanal
revivals. The works, at first inspired by cold
Neoclassical decoration, received an ingenious imprint toward
the middle of the last century, at the initiative of Viollet-
Le-Duc. Finally, toward the last years of the century and the first
of the twentieth century, a substantial group of Italian artists
took up this use again, obtaining excellent results. Particularly
notable are the wrought-iron works made by A. Gerardi for the basilica of
Gethsemane. - See plate LXXX.
