Barstow, Nina

ART-Dok

503 
T H E E O M A N C E O F A E T . 
THE FORGERIES OF BASTIANINI. 
V? I 
I O V A N N I BASTIA ­
N I N I was bom in 
1830, at Ponte alia 
Badia, close to thecon­
veut of St. Domenico, 
between Florence and 
Fiesole. His father 
was a poor peasant, 
living the hard hand­
to­mouth existence 
common to his class 
in Tuscany; and the boy, during his earliest years, 
had no prospect of a wider life for himself. A 
scanty subsistence on dry bread, beans, figs, or 
water­melons, according to the season, days spent 
in and out of the stable with a mule or two and 
a rough pony—the most precious of the family 
possessions—then, after a time, work in the stone 
quarries up on the hi l l ­ top—this was Giovanni's 
life till he reached his thirteenth year. Of educa­
tion, properly so called, he had none; but he must 
have very soon opened his eyes to the beauty and 
wonder of changing human expression, and made 
some at tempt at giving form to his ideas, for we 
hear that at thirteen years old he attracted the 
notice of Professor Inghirami, who was then print­
ing his work on the Etruscans. Seeing evident 
traces of talent in the boy, he took him into his 
printing­office, where he learnt the elements of draw­
ing. Later on he was employed as " facchino " and 
errand boy by the sculptor Torrini, and in his studio, 
though Giovanni's mission was merely to sweep the 
floor or other such menial work, he began to ma­
nipulate the clay, and even surreptitiously to work 
at bits of marble. He had no definite teaching from 
Torrini. The technical part of the work he learnt 
by watching his master's process : his own quick per­
ceptions of t ru th and beauty, fed by observation of 
the living types around him, and also of the works 
of Delia Robbia and Donatello in the galleries and 
piazzas of Florence, grew and developed wonder­
fully day by day. 
He also worked for a time in Signor Fedi's studio; 
but the turning­point in Bastianini 's life came in his 
twentieth year, when Freppa, the antiquarian and 
ex­charcoal­seller, cast his eye upon the youth and 
marked him for his own. For a man who made 
his living, by the selling of old bas­reliefs, busts, 
or fragments, genuine or otherwise, what a treasure 
was this ! Here was a simple­minded peasant boy, 
ignorant, unquestioning, and poor, yet apparently 
gifted with a quite phenomenal sense of form, daring 
skill of handling, and above all, what was most 
useful for Freppa, an intense sympathy with the 
great masters of the Renaissance. W h a t gems of 
Cinque­cento work could he not produce if only this 
brain and these hands could be induced to work for 
him and him alone ! I t was not difficult to compass 
this. The offer of two francs a day, and all material 
and facilities for work, was a sufficiently tempt ing 
bait. I t was, a t any rate, a steady certainty, and 
would with care perhaps enable Giovanni to provide 
bread for his father. Thus the poor boy, not know­
ing the power tha t was in him, entered the bondage 
that was his doom. 
He was now installed in Freppa's dingy workshop 
in the Borgoguissanti, bound as a galley­slave to his 
bench. All facilities for work were indeed given 
him, and he could now mould his ideas in clay, or 
chisel them in marble, to the joy of his soul; but not 
for his own profit or fame were these things to be 
made. For him the pittance of two francs a day—for 
Freppa, the antiquarian, was the credit of discovering 
treasures of ancient art, for Freppa the money of 
rich collectors. And as a slave­owner so feeds his 
human machines as to extract f rom the thew and 
sinew the utmost amount of labour profitable to him­
self, always stopping short of developing a power in 
his victim which might lead to rebellion, so Freppa, 
with well­calculated prudence, having acquired for 
himself this living artist brain, began to feed i t in 
order to stimulate its creative power. Bastianini 
was provided with books, and he read eagerly the 
history of Florence, of her great men, patriots, poets, 
saints—the history of her art f rom its first root 
to its final flowering in the Renaissance, and upon 
this culminating phase his imagination rested. The 
f rui ts of those years of patient, arduous, and ill­
paid toil may be seen in every museum in Europe, 
for there is scarcely one that cannot show some bas­
relief, or some portrait­bust, ascribed to one of the 
great masters, but really due to the hand of Bastianini. 
I n the South Kensington Museum there is a panel 
representing the Virgin and Child in very low relief, 
with two winged cherubs in the background. I t is 
labelled Rossellino, but the fact of its having been 
procured from Freppa, combined with the existence 
of an antique f ragment exactly resembling the lower 
half of it, and of a complete bas­relief, f rom which the 
upper half is copied, would seem to afford abundant 
Originalveröffentlichung in: The magazine of art (London), 9 (1886), S. 503-508
504 T H E M A G A Z I N E OF ART. 
evidence of its being the result of Bastianini's in­
genuity, it' not of his artistic skill. Also in the 
same museum a portrait­bust, in marble, of Lucrezia 
relief of his in Signer Tovelli's studio in Florence 
which is interesting as being a chisel­sketch show­
ing each stroke. The subject is a " Holy Fami ly / ' 
^Sw**^ 
fen •/s 
. . , 
JQNP 
vrytAk*** 
LUCEEZIA DOXATI. 
(From, the UarVte by Bastianlni. South Kmsington.) 
Donati, attenuated in form, but full of living force 
and individuality. Bastianini, it seems, would con­
stantly work direct upon the marble, after the fashion 
of Michelangelo, without any preliminary modelling 
in clay, and there is now a small unfinished bas­
simply and pathetically rendered, af ter the manner 
of Luca della Robbia. 
By degrees it seems that poverty began to press 
harder on the Bastianinis. ' Sons and daughters had 
increased to five or six, and the father was infirm, and 
T H E R O M A N C E O F ART. 505 
could earn but little : so, of course, according to the marble amongst the straw and the sleeping beasts, by 
good old Italian custom of the one member who has the l ight of a little dim oil-lamp, and thus feeding 
the talent supporting the rest of the family, our poor the family purse. And these sleepless nights of his 
^ S s 
SAVONAROLA. 
(From the Bust by BastkmlrA. San Marco, Florence.) 
Giovanni began to steal some hours from his sleep in 
order to work clandestinely in his fa ther 's stable. 
His brother, younger than himself by twelve 
years, is still living in Florence, and he says he can 
well remember watching Giovanni chipping at his 
produced fragments of such strange beauty, tha t with 
the help of some little story of a contadiuo having 
found them underground he succeeded in cheating 
even the eyes and suspicious mind of his master, who 
bought the things of him as real " antichita." 
506 T H E M A G A Z I N E O F ART. 
The individuality of Bastianini would have been 
lost to us had it not been for his two most audacious 
forgeries, the busts of Savonarola and of the poet 
Benivieni, both done by Freppa's orders. The en­
thusiasm amongst the artists of Florence when the 
bust of Savonarola first appeared, and their excitement 
on discovering it to be the work of a contemporary, 
seem to me so interesting and characteristic that I 
venture to insert a translation of a letter from Signor 
Diego Martelli, the Tuscan art­critic, which tells 
the story of its discovery as Nino Costa told it at 
a dinner at the painter Cristiano Bant i ' s :— 
" ' Do you remember,'' Costa said, ' the fuss there 
was tha t evening at the Caffe Michelangelo, when 
every one was talking of the discovery of a terra­
cotta bust of Savonarola which had been found in a 
villa of the Inghirami ? Well, the next morning 
Bant i comes to me (I was then living in the Via 
Maggio), wakes me up, and says, " Let us go and 
see the Savonarola." I agree, and we go off to the 
shop of the ex­charcoal­seller Freppa, in the Borgo­
guissanti, and there find him the happy possessor of 
this wonderful work of art . But we, moved by a 
scrupulous spirit of research, rush off f rom there to 
every gallery and museum in Florence in order to be 
able to compare the newly­discovered bust with all 
the other authenticated likenesses of the monk; and, 
after having examined the portrait by Fra Barto­
lommeo, in the possession of the Rubieri, and the 
Corniola of Giovanni delle Corniole, as well as 
everything else tha t was to be seen, we came to the 
conclusion tha t none showed such evidence of ve­
racity as the bust in the Borgoguissanti. 
" ' T h u s convinced of its genuineness, and hearing 
it vociferated on all sides tha t the bust would most 
surely be snatched up by some of our neighbours 
across the Alps, Bant i and 1 each collected half the 
necessary money, returned to the ex­charcoal­seller, 
and bought the bust for 10,000 francs. Having 
concluded the purchase and carried the bust to 
Banti 's house, we told Campani, the Inspector of 
the Galleries, and also Marchese Ferrani, that we had 
possessed ourselves of the terra­cotta in order to pre­
vent its leaving the country, and that we would hold 
it at the disposal of the Royal Galleries for the same 
price we had given for it. Campani and Ferrani 
then hinted tha t there were many forgeries going 
about, and tha t one must keep one's eyes open. 
" ' In the meantime Fra Girolamo, resuscitated by 
the magic power of art , received many visits f rom 
the lovers of the beautiful. Amongst these visitors 
was Dupre, who was so overwhelmed with admira­
tion tha t he said he could only attribute this work to 
Michelangelo for i ts force and to Luca della Robbia 
for its exquisite handl ing; at any rate, he considered 
it the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and 
went so far as to say tha t it determined him to 
a t tempt a fresh departure in art . He took his young 
daughter to see it, and showed her how the clay had 
been divided into two parts to ensure greater security 
in the b a k i n g ; and, in observing this, he praised the 
skill and patience and the wise methods of the old 
masters. Frederick Leighton, the celebrated English 
painter, sent a telegram to Costa, who was then out 
of Florence, asking for permission to make a drawing 
of it, and for answer received a photograph, which he 
placed, like a sacred image, at the head of his b e d ; 
and there it still remains. The Grandduchess Marie 
of Russia and Lippart meditated the construction of 
a temple for its reception. 
" ' A l l this crowding of visitors, though admirable 
in itself as a sign of artistic enthusiasm, was yet 
not convenient to the master of the house whose 
guest the Frate had become, and we determined to 
exhibit him in the Palazzo Riccardi for the benefit 
of the In fan t Asylum, asking half a f ranc entrance. 
Thus curiosity was appeased, and the children of 
the Asylum gained some thousands of francs. 
' " I n those days I had, as you know, my heart 
in the arts and my feet in politics. The capital 
was not for ever to be Florence, paralysing the 
Administration with the same narcotics tha t Rome 
had given the Romans, preparing for revolution and 
for I taly. I had then to leave Florence, my friends, 
and Savonarola, and go to Rome. Whi l s t there I 
received certain nebulous letters from Banti , lett ing 
fall hints and warnings tha t this work was pro­
bably modern. Being occupied with other things, I 
did not pay any attention to this, when, in either '64 
or ''65, having gone to Naples to consult with the 
Prefect Gualterio on Roman affairs, I came across 
Alessandro Castellani, and was invited to dinner 
with him and his wife. Dur ing dinner the conver­
sation turned upon the " B i e n v i e n i " tha t had been 
bought by the Louvre as an antique, and the jokes 
tha t had arisen from the discovery that the real 
author of it was Bastianini. The most laughable 
th ing was when Alessandro said to me, " This bust 
is beautiful, it is true, but it is nothing to a bust 
of Savonarola tha t I saw in his workshop. I wonder 
what has become of i t . " " I can tell you all about 
tha t bus t , " I answered; " i t is mine, and I paid 
such and such a price for i t . " " We are giving 
Signor Costa a very poor welcome," said' Castellani's 
amiable wife, to whom I replied tha t I was very 
glad to find tha t such a distinguished artist was 
living, and not dead, and tha t as soon as I could 
investigate the case I would make it known to the 
world. Castellani then told me tha t the antiquary 
Gagliardi was in the secret, and tha t he could point 
out the furnace that had baked the bust and the 
model tha t had posed for it to Bastianiui. 
T H E R O M A N C E OK ART. 507 
" ' Meantime the years were passing, the affairs 
of Rome were swelling in magnitude, and the Bas-
tianini matter slumbered. But after Mentana I 
came to Florence with Banti and Giulio Poli, and on 
the 5th of November went together to Bastianini's 
workshop. I asked him abruptly whether it was he 
who had done the bust of Savonarola. " Yes, I am 
sorry to say," he answered, with much agitation. 
" I t was not intended to deceive y o u ; it was to 
satisfy Neuwekerke." " A p i ty , " I said, " t h a t with 
your talent you should only make forgeries." 
" ' Having thus proved the fact , we rushed 
off to the Riforma, and published a declaration 
announcing to the public that the bust of Savona­
rola, hitherto supposed to have been the work of 
an old master, was by the living sculptor Basti­
anini. Tableau ! ' 
" Many years," continues Signor Martelli for 
himself, " a f t e r the marriage of King Umberto, 
Raffaello Foresi, a great friend of mine, took me to 
Bastianini's workshop, and I thus made acquaint­
ance with this singular man, who for so many years 
had lent his genius and his skill to the frauds of his 
employer, receiving a mere pittance himself. There 
stood upon his shelves busts in various styles, from the 
delicate characteristics of Mino da Fiesole to those 
in which the treatment was more baroque, such as 
a Bianea Capello, which was to be or had been a 
Gian Bologna. On the easel was a half­length figure 
of an English diplomat in a frock­coat, who had 
ordered his own image to be produced in the style 
of the Fif teenth Century, combined with modern 
costume—an effectual encouragement to the freedom 
of art. W e spoke of things artistic—Raffaello Foresi 
with his usual emphatic veracity, and Bastianini 
with the simplicity of a potter from Impruneta. 
Apropos of the real old masters, Bastianini remarked, 
and illustrated his meaning as he spoke—that Dona­
tello put a certain touch of feeling in the nostrils 
thus, whilst Luca did it in such and such a manner; 
in the hair Mino had usually a certain method of 
treatment, Benedetto da Rovezzano another; and so 
from sentiment to sentiment he commented/analysed, 
anatomised, all the most celebrated works of the best 
masters, until he concluded by informing us that one 
of them, I forget which, showed great individuality 
in his treatment of the nails of the toes." 
The second forgery stirred even a wider sea of 
controversy, and to its author brought bitterness, 
despair, and death. In 1867 an Exhibition of Ancient 
Ar t was opened in Paris, and one of the objects that 
attracted most attention there was a terra­cotta bust 
of Benivieni, the Florentine poet of the Sixteenth 
Century. The masterly treatment of the head, its 
strange modelling, and the living personality ex­
pressed in its somewhat rugged features, all pointed 
to its being an authentic contemporary portrait from 
one of the great master­hands. 
This bust was then the property of M. de Nolivos, 
an art­eolleetor; but some months afterwards, his 
whole collection being offered for sale at the Hotel 
Drouot, the "Benivieni" was bought by the Director of 
the Louvre for 13,000 francs, and placed in the centre 
of the room containing Michelangelo's " Captives," 
a nymph by Benvenuto Cellini, a bust by Desiderio 
da Settignano, and other works of the Fifteenth 
and Sixteenth Centuries. Hither connoisseurs of all 
nations thronged to admire the newly­found treasure. 
Historians and archaeologists expatiated on the look 
of concentrated thought in the strangely­marked 
face, and affirmed tha t such was indubitably the face 
of the poet who sang the " Divine Love," the platonic 
philosopher, friend of Pico della Mirandola and of 
Savonarola. Art­critics marvelled at the technical 
skill it displayed, compared it with other works of 
the Renaissance, proving it equal to the best among 
t h e m ; and rejoiced in it as a rare specimen of the 
art tha t is no more. 
Suddenly an impudent rumour ruffles the com­
placency of the savants of Paris. Whence it came 
first does not seem quite clear. Some say that the 
Gazette des Beaux-Arts was the first to hint at any­
th ing wrong. Then, again, there is a story of how 
Dr. Foresi (a well­known art­collector in Florence) 
carried certain undoubtedly genuine antiques to Paris 
and offered them to the Louvre; how M. de Neuwe­
kerke declined to give the prices demanded, adding 
a disparaging doubt as to their authent ic i ty; how 
Foresi, indignant and wounded, flared into wrathful 
plain­speaking : " You will not give the jus t value 
for real objects of antique art , and yet you­ pay 
13,000 francs for tha t 'Ben iv ien i / which is a th ing 
of t o ­ d a y ! " Then followed storms, protestations, 
offended dignity, and ut ter refusal on the part of 
the Paris connoisseurs to accept the t ru th . Freppa, 
when appealed to, made no a t tempt to claim an­
tiquity for the bust, declaring tha t he had sold it 
for 700 francs on its own merits (having given 
Bastianini 350 francs for the commission), and tha t 
if the purchaser chose to consider it old it was no 
affair of his. 
The controversy grew hotter and hotter. There 
were angry hints at a Florentine intrigue, gross impos­
ture on the part of the pretended author of the master­
piece ; finally, the settled determination that the " Beni­
vieni" had been bought as Cinque­cento, and Cinque­
cento it should remain. And all this time there was 
old Giuseppe Bonaiuti, the tobacconist, whose head 
had served as a model for the cultured man of letters 
of three centuries ago, sit t ing in his little shop in the 
narrow Florentine Street, chuckling with his cus­
tomers over the newspaper gossip from deluded Paris; 
508 T H E M A G A Z I N E O F ART. 
while Bastianini himself, sore wounded, was calling 
upon Heaven and earth to witness that the hust was 
the work of his own hands. 
The world was indeed out of joint for poor Bas­
tianini. Af ter so many years of patient toil, in which 
he asked for nothing but bread for his father, loving 
the work for his work's sake, now at last the fire of 
ambition kindled in his heart, and he began to realise 
the supreme joy of the artist whose name shines for 
ever on the historic page. But it was too late. 
Always of a nervous, excitable temperament, working 
with fury one day and the next, perhaps, languid 
and dispirited, the Benivieni question, with all the 
doubts thrown upon his word, the insults heaped upon 
him by the French press, had so crushed and con­
sumed him, that at the very moment when he began 
to understand what possibilities life might have had 
for him, he fell, worsted in the hopeless struggle. 
His health rapidly declined, and he died of a low 
f eve r a t t h e a g e of t h i r t y ­ e i g h t . NINA BAUSTOW. 


The romance of art. The forgeries of Bastianini

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