STUCCO

STUCCO. – It is a mixture of lime and pozzolana combined with marble dust or plaster; when dried, it becomes hard and can be worked with a chisel and gouge; the variety known as “scagliuola” is soft, malleable like clay, and sets with water: it can be worked with simple spatulas and also with moulds and matrices. It was widely employed from the earliest times because of the relative ease with which it could be worked and applied.

Egyptian architects and painters used it both to plaster interiors and to prepare the painted surfaces of wooden chests or sarcophagi and the masks of mummies. In Cretan art (the Minoan Palace of Crosso, ca. 1600 B.C.) and in Etruscan art (Vulci, François Tomb, ca. 300 B.C.; Cerveteri, tomb of the s.) it was employed in plastic decoration with a technique analogous to that of the bas-relief. No monuments of the Classical or Alexandrian periods remain. Examples of decoration from the Roman imperial age, monochrome or divided into various fields of color, or combined grotesques (v.), were brought to light by archaeological excavations in entire panels of the finest workmanship, especially at Pompeii (the Stabian Baths, the Tepidarium near the Forum, the Temple of Isis), and at Rome (the Palatine Palaces, Nero’s Domus aurea, the corridors of the Colosseum, etc.). The most important monuments stylistically are the stuccoes of the villa known as the Farnesina, now in the Museo delle Terme; those of the so-called Underground Basilica of Porta Maggiore (both of Augustan date); and those of the suburban tombs of the Valeri and the Pancrazi.

In the early Christian period, after the examples in the tombs of S. Sebastiano (hypogea from the first half of the 3rd century A.D.), the most distinguished monument that still preserves its decoration intact, in the sequence of its marble inlays, stucco, and mosaic, is the Baptistery of the Orthodox at Ravenna (5th century). Although still effective in their overall effects, these stuccoes reveal in their details the uncertainty of the technique.

In the barbarian period and during the Romanesque and Gothic periods, the use of stucco was rarer (the churches of Disentis in Switzerland, Malles in Alto Adige, S. Maria in Valle at Cividale, Genzode, and S. Maria of Halberstadt in Germany). In these centuries, especially in the exterior decoration of civil buildings, earthenware varieties improperly called stucco were preferred. In the Renaissance, interest in plastic stucco revived. On the ceiling and at the top of the wall in the hall of Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Domenico di Paris modeled, with the delicacy of a brilliant goldsmith, an unrivaled series of motifs with festoons, medallions, fruits, allegorical representations of virtues, etc. But the material used in the 15th century, resulting from various combinations of gypsum, lime, Greek pitch, wax, and brick fragments, treated by fire (Vasari), could not compete with the pliable quality of Roman stucco. It was Giovanni da Udine, around 1516, who rediscovered the formula of the ancient combination, mixing light-colored marble powder with white travertine lime, and inaugurated the golden age of stucco decoration. In the courtyard of Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, in Raphael’s Loggias, in Palazzo dell’Aquila, at Villa Madama, at the Farnesina in Rome; and then in Palazzo Vecchio and the New Sacristy of S. Lorenzo in Florence, as well as in Venice, Padua, and Udine, he left examples that were widely imitated throughout the 16th century. A whole host of artists, from Daniele da Volterra to Pierin del Vaga, Lucio and Giulio Romano,

Felice Brandani, and Alessandro Vittoria, extended the use of this decoration throughout the peninsula. It evolved from the barely projecting and highly elegant lines of the first manner, dominated by Raphael’s influence, toward more complex and weighty combinations.

Seventeenth-century stucco rivaled sculpture in the pursuit of plastic effects. Among those distinguished in its execution were Lombard artists: Prospero Bresciano worked in the Vatican; G. Ferabosco and S. Castelli were active in Rome; B. Bernasconi and C. De Marchi in Genoa; and G. A. Sala in Bergamo, Venice, Bologna, and Florence. A group of Roman stucco artists gathered around Maderno, Bernini, and P. da Cortona, among whom Cosimo and Giacomo Fancelli and Antonio Raggi came to the fore. The masterpiece of seventeenth-century decoration in Rome is perhaps Palazzo Mattei.

In Turin, at the Castello del Valentino, the Campionese artists Francesco and Pompeo Bianchi worked, for whom their father Isidoro supplied the designs. Toward the end of the century, the Palermitan G. Serpotta (v.) surpassed all others through the ingenuity of his inventions. During the eighteenth century, the Venetians achieved supremacy in interpreting the refined and at times exoticizing taste of polite society. The magnificent villas scattered throughout the Venetian hinterland were enriched with splendid decorations. Following Tiepolo, Venetian stucco artists conquered Milan and Lombardy. In Sicily, Serpotta’s example kept a flourishing school alive. The Neoclassical style was inaugurated by Giocondo Albertolli, who, in northern Italy toward the end of the 18th century, fostered a nursery of stucco artists, much sought after everywhere. During the nineteenth century, the art of stucco declined, especially in the often crude use, intended to produce false-relief effects, of that profusion of neo-styles which lacked all imagination and sensitivity. In the more recent period, and particularly after the Second World War, it has instead returned to great favor, especially in the decoration of public halls (auditoriums, cinemas, etc.). Stucco is also employed for certain color effects in theatrical and film scenography, sometimes with positive results. — Vedi tav. CIII.