APOLLO AND MERCURY

di Piero Bargellini

 

It is difficult to know where and when the story of the antique business, like all stories, begins.

Asinius Pollonius who, according to Pliny, with his « monumenta » attracted the vehement attention of the Roman public, already had the antique dealer's inclination. Nero was known to have a passion for « antiques », and after him, with greater refinement, the « varius, multiplex, moltiformis » emperor Hadrian. The desire to possess beautiful, rare and antique objects is so natural that even the barbarians, descending into Italy, caught the fever. Not to mention the, monks, who were so partial to antique volumes that the name « antiquarian » was first given to the copiers of manuscripts. Love of antiquity was the most outstanding characteristic of the humanists, like Niccolo Niccoli who, as told by Vespasiano da Bisticci, would eat only from antique earthen plates and drink only from classically contoured vessels. From the humanists, the passion for « antiquities » passed to the princes of the Renaissance.

As symbol of peace and friendship, Cosimo de' Medici sent a manuscript of Titus Livy to the King of Naples, Alfonso of Aragon, and so unusual was the gift that the king's courtiers suspected its pages of being sprinkled with a fine and potent poison. Afterwards, the same king, also caught by the fever of antiques, gave reward to soldiers who, after sacking the city, brought him back antique coins and works of art. Palla Strozzi, for his part, though beaten by Cosimo de' Medici in the field of political passion, would not be defeated in that of the craze for antiques. Nor did the Montefeltros, Gonzagas, Viscontis, or Sforzas remain behind the Medicis for long. But the Florentine people, as is known, were the most constant and brilliant among the others. After Cosimo comes Pietro, after Pietro comes Lorenzo, then Lorenzino, who in Rome beheaded the statues of the emperors, not so much out of hatred £or the tyrants, as he would have liked everyone to believe, but £or his collection of classical busts. Cellini relates how he taught Duke Francis the art of cleaning and restoring Etruscan bronzes, while Leopold, in the Medicean villa of Rome, created a real museum of artistic objects. But these people, in all seriousness, more than antique dealers were « Collectors », however difficult it is to tistinguish between the two, every antique dealer being a collector and vice versa. The real antique dealer, under the commercial point of view, did not spring up until the end of the eighteenth century and did not flourish until the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the auspicious climate of the first and zealous middle class society. At that moment, between the ignorant owner of antiques and the cultivated lover of arts, interposed itsel£ the figure of the antique dealer, enterprising merchant and intelligent connoisseur; most capable scholar as well as great patron of art. The great eighteenth century antique dealers, men gifted with special intuition and at the same time devoted to creative studies, vehement “ poachers “ as well as expert judges, by skillful selection chose and placed a value on works of art that, without their timely intervention, would have almost certainly been destroyed. They rescued the works £rom oblivion, shed new light upon them, and imposed them on the taste and interests of a vast clientele; no longer princes and prelates, but a wealthy middle class desirous of enobling their homes with objects of rare beauty and ambitious to possess art works of other times and of different societies. If antique dealers were quick to see a profit and their fortunate discoveries were the result of their private (interest ), this detracts nothing £rom the final results, that is to say, their role as the sel£ appointed energetic interpreters for a non-conformist culture as well as the educators of a higher aesthetic appreciation. It is also true that their enterprises were the cause of the dispersion of many works of art £rom their places of origin. But if one stops to think that, most probably, the places of origin could also have been places of oblivion, then the dispersion seems rather a providential salvation from destruction and irreparable ruin. The rapid circulation of art works, encouraged by the curiosity, not disinterested, of the antique dealers, and their energetic initiative, determined, in the field of aesthetic criticism and historical research, new horizons, changes in the aesthetic taste and actual cultural evolutions.

The dealer in antiques had, in this way, two inspiring deities: Mercury and Apollo. To the first are owed important and sometimes imposing commercial exchanges, with consequent fluctuations in the financial equilibrium. A section of the artisan trade was and still is concerned with restoration work. Thus it can be said that one of the noblest merchants keeps alive one of the most skillful artisan trades. To the second deity, on the other hand, are owed fortunate discoveries, providential salvations, intelligent evaluations, gifts of perception, foundations of galleries, large legacies, and those fortunate antique dealers, who wished to give a tangible evidence of theIr deepest feelings for an art, not so much profited from, as enriched and served. The Antiques Fair, after the experiment made a few years ago, under the direction of the unforgetable Florentine antique dealer Luigi Bellini, opening on an international horizon, reflects two sides of the antique business. It is an exhibition of rare objects, discovered, collected and brought to light by the greatest art experts.

It is merchandise offered to the best clients of the world, in a city where love for « antiques » was enlightened by the studies of the creative humanists and enriched by the wealth of truly great patrons of art. This Fair, with the background of a palace which has shown to the public one of the greatest collections of objects of art, will give to the antiques activity the place is deserves, that is to say not in unsuitable shops or in the centre of idle studies, but in an environment fully adaptable and worthy of its value. Apollo and Mercury once again will agree, beside their diverse activies, in crowning the efforts and triumphs of antique dealers of the whole world, assembled in Florence,

in an atmosphere of cordial appraisal and honest gratitude.

Piero Bargellini

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