STUCCO. — It is a mixture of lime and pozzolana blended with marble or gypsum dust; when dry it becomes hard and workable with 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 even with molds and matrices. It was widely employed from the most ancient times owing to the relative ease of its working and application.
To Felice Brandani and Alessandro Vittoria the spread of this decoration throughout the peninsula is due; it evolved from the barely projecting and supremely elegant line of the early manner, dominated by Raphael’s influence, toward more complex and heavier combinations.
Seventeenth-century stucco rivaled sculpture in the search for plastic effects. Among its executants Lombard artists distinguished themselves: Prospero Bresciano worked in the Vatican; G. Ferabosco and S. Castelli were active in Rome; B. Bernasconi and C. De Marchi in Genoa; G. A. Sala in Bergamo, Venice, Bologna, and Florence. Around Maderno, Bernini, and P. da Cortona a group of Roman stucco-workers gathered, among whom Cosimo and Giacomo Fancelli and Antonio Raggi emerged. The masterpiece of seventeenth-century decoration in Rome is perhaps the Palazzo Mattei.
In Turin, at the Castello del Valentino, the Campionese artists Francesco and Pompeo Bianchi worked, supplied with designs by their father Isidoro. Toward the end of the century, the Parmesan G. Serpotta (q.v.) rose above all others for the ingenuity of his inventions. During the eighteenth century, in interpreting the refined and sometimes exotic taste of fashionable society, the Venetians achieved preeminence. The magnificent villas scattered through the Venetian hinterland were enriched with splendid decorations. Following Tiepolo, Venetian stucco-workers conquered Milan and Lombardy. In Sicily Serpotta’s example kept a flourishing school alive. The neoclassical style was inaugurated by Giocondo Albertolli, who, toward the end of the eighteenth century in northern Italy, fostered a nursery of stucco-workers much sought after everywhere. During the nineteenth century the art of stucco declined, especially in the often coarse use intended to produce effects of false relief in that efflorescence of neo-styles which lacked every spark of fantasy and sensitivity. In more recent times, and particularly after the Second World War, it has instead enjoyed great favor, especially in the decoration of public halls (auditoria, cinemas, etc.). Stucco is also employed for certain color effects in theatrical and cinematographic scenography, sometimes with positive results.
See pl. CIII.