FINIGUERRA, MASO. – Goldsmith, niello engraver, and draughtsman, b. in Florence in March 1426, d. there in Aug. 1464. A pupil of his father Antonio, he was initially an assistant to Ghiberti on the second door of the baptistery. Devoting himself from 1449 niello (v.), he engraved (1452) a Pax commissioned by the Calimala Guild. He worked for a long time in the workshop of the goldsmith Pietro di Bartolomeo Sali, frequented by Antonio Pollaiuolo, and a close friend of the F. Baldovinetti (v.) records in his Ricordi (1463–64) that he had painted the heads of five figures in two intarsias by Giuliano da Majano, based on a design by M. F., for the cupboards of S. Maria del Fiore. Of these intarsias, the Annunciation in S. Maria del Fiore (new sacristy) is the one most probably based on a design by F., although
others (Berenson, Arcangeli) hold that all the intarsias were executed from cartoons by A. Baldovinetti (Nativity, S. Zanobi, Circumcision, Prophets Amos and Isaiah). In any case, the Annunciation is not merely Baldovinetti-like: references to Pollaiuolo and Castagno are evident, and affinities with Giovanni di Francesco may be noted. Such, perhaps, was F.: not a strong, but rather an elusive personality. To him cannot be attributed, at least in the present state of research, even the two nielli, the Paci, in the National Museum of Florence. The Crucifixion, in fact, is perhaps by Matteo Dei and does not correspond to Cellini’s description (Trattato della orificeria); the Coronation displays Lippi-like characteristics and does not belong to the cycle of the Passion of Christ, according to Vasari’s account.
On the other hand, the attribution to F. is highly uncertain, both of numerous drawings and of a drawn Florentine Chronicle, in pen, found in the British Museum, which often displays characteristics more Pesellinian than Pollaiuolesque.