Baptistry at Pisa
Piazza dei Miracoli
Volterran alabaster, ca. 1860
16-1/2″ high
This impressively-sized, carefully and ornately carved, highly realized alabaster miniature of the Baptistry at Pisa is a high point of Italian souvenir architectural model making in the later 19th century.
While Pisa was long a destination for Rome-bound Grand Tourists, the production of miniature mementos of the city’s famous monuments began only in the mid-19th century. Interestingly, the first Pisan company to make and offer these was a firm specializing in souvenir photographs of the familiar landmarks – miniatures in
two-dimensions, rather than three. Advertisements for Huguet and Van Lint, dating to the 1870’s, mention a range of souvenirs. Some, but not all, models provided by this company are signed. Ours is not, though consistent with other of the firm’s work.
Rather than the various colored marbles familiar in Roman souvenirs, Pisan work is made from alabaster, quarried in nearby Volterra since the time of the Etruscans (8th – 1st centuries B.C.). This material was available in several colors, and with this model we see several shades of white, as well as gray. Alabaster and marble are fundamentally different stones – the first a sulfate of lime, the second a carbonate of lime. Often, Pisan fabricators finished alabaster to resemble marble, especially its smooth lustrous surface. To do this, they might treat the alabaster with soap and bone dust, as appears to be the case with the base of this model of the Baptistry.
Today, of course, when we think of Pisa, we think of the tilting Tower, and Piraneseum offers remarkable 19th century models of this monument. However, more than 100 years ago, offerings for tourists for tourists included not only the Tower and Baptistry, but the adjacent Pisa Cathedral.
