Guccio di Mannaia

Little is known about the life of Guccio di Mannaia, and very few works are attributed to him with certainty. He came from a family of Sienese goldsmiths, with his brother (Pino) as well as his three sons (Montigiano, Mannaia, and Jacopo) working in the same trade. He was influenced by Pace di Valentino who was the first Sienese goldsmith working for the papal court (under popes Nicholas III, Martin IV, Honorius IV, and Boniface VIII).{{Cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/pace-di-valentino_(Dizionario-Biografico)/|title=PACE di Valentino in "Dizionario Biografico"|website=www.treccani.it|access-date=2017-01-30}} In addition, he seems to have been familiar with northern European artworks, such as the Westminster retable in England and the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts of the Parisian Master Honoré, to which the human figures in his work are often compared.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3_FGAQAAIAAJ&dq=westminster+retable+guccio+di+mannaia&pg=PA451|title=Duccio: Siena fra tradizione bizantina e mondo gotico|last=Bagnoli|first=Alessandro|date=2003-01-01|publisher=Silvana|pages=448–453|isbn=9788882156794|language=it}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/guccio-di-mannaia_(Dizionario-Biografico)/|title=GUCCIO di Mannaia in "Dizionario Biografico"|website=www.treccani.it|language=it|access-date=2017-01-11}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y_DzBwAAQBAJ&dq=westminster+retable+guccio+di+mannaia&pg=PA14|title=Il Pittore Oltremontano di Assisi: Il Gotico a Siena e la formazione di Simone Martini|last=Aa.Vv|date=2012-03-17|publisher=Gangemi Editore spa|isbn=9788849255997|pages=14|language=it}} It is certain that he was actively working until 1322 though he was dead by 1329.{{Cite book|title=Il Calice di Guccio di Mannaia|last=Cioni|first=Elisabetta|publisher=Edizioni Musei Vaticani|year=2014|isbn=9788882713300|editor-last=Callori di Vignale|editor-first=Flavia|location=Città del Vaticano|pages=51–52|language=it|chapter=Guccio di Mannaia e l'oreficeria senese del XIIII secolo|editor-last2=Santamaria|editor-first2=Ulderico}}

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|Description = Detail of a fresco by Simone Martini based on a seal made by Guccio di Mannaia in 1298

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Guccio di Mannaia engraved four seals from 1292 to 1318 for which receipts of payment exist, and although one of these works is now lost the other three survive. He was well known in Siena, his city of origin, and received numerous official commissions;{{Cite web|url=https://arca.unive.it/retrieve/handle/10278/34242/26067/ONH_5_6_2011_2012_Oreficeria.pdf|title=Siena e artisti senesi: Maestri Orafi|last=Donato|first=Maria Monica|date=2012|editor-last=Donato|editor-first=Maria Monica|page=19|language=it|access-date=2 January 2017}} it is likely that the number of seals produced under his direction was vast.{{Cite journal|last=De Castris|first=Pier Luigi Leone|date=1979-01-01|title=Smalti e oreficerie di Guccio di Mannaia al museo del Bargello|jstor=24419855|journal=Prospettiva|issue=17|pages=58–64}}

Guccio di Mannaia's only signed work is a chalice "of extraordinary importance and quality" made in 1288-1292 at the request of Pope Nicholas IV for the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. The base and knop were made of gold-plated silver using the lost-wax method, while the cup, made of the same material, was created through embossing. It contains technical details including finely wrought repoussé leaves with other metalwork features that mark it as "Tuscan Gothic"; both its form and technique were widely copied. In addition, the chalice is decorated with ninety-six translucent and semi-translucent enamels.{{Cite book|title=Il Tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi|last=Liscia Bemporad|first=Dora|publisher=Editrice Francescana|year=1980|editor-last=Ciardi Dupré dal Poggetto|editor-first=Maria G.|location=Assisi|pages=125|chapter=Oreficerie e Avorio|quote="Few works of art ... achieve such a level of consistency among formal, decorative, iconographic and functional elements. / Poche opere d'arte ... raggiungono una tale coerenza tra l'elemento formale, decorativo, iconografico e funzionale."}} The enamels depict images of the crucifixion, the Virgin and child, symbols of the evangelists, several Franciscan saints (Saints Francis, Clare, and Anthony), Pope Nicholas himself, as well as angels, apostles, and prophets. The range of enamel colors includes azure, violet, yellow-gold, green, brown, and blue, and in various places the chiselling and engraving of the metalwork reveals the silver underneath the gold plating.{{Cite book|title=Il Calice di Guccio di Mannaia|last=De Chirico|first=Fabio|publisher=Edizioni Musei Vaticani|year=2014|isbn=9788882713300|editor-last=Callori di Vignale|editor-first=Flavia|location=Città del Vaticano|pages=11|language=it|chapter=Introduzione|editor-last2=Santamaria|editor-first2=Ulderico}} His signature (Guccius Mannaie de Senis fecit) as well as the name of the commissioning Pope (Niccholaus Papa quartus) are contained in sixteen of the enamels that circumscribe the chalice’s stem. Commissioned by the first Franciscan pope, the chalice with its imagery is part of the vast decorative project that includes the frescoes and stained glass windows of the Basilica. An inventory from 1430 of the Basilica, where the chalice is still kept, contains a reference to a paten, now lost, that was decorated with a scene of the Last Supper, similar in style to the chalice. Other works attributed to him are done so based only on comparison to the chalice rather than other documentary evidence, and can be found in museums in Florence, Siena, Paris, and Berlin.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i3Od9bcGus0C&dq=works+attributed+to+Guccio+di+Mannaia&pg=PA457|title=The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts|last=Campbell|first=Gordon|date=2006-01-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195189483|volume=1|pages=457|language=en}}

File:Chalice Assisi Guccio di Mannaia 1 Entire Chalice.jpg

File:Chalice Assisi Guccio di Mannaia 2 Detail Knop.jpg

File:Chalice Assisi Guccio di Mannaia 3 Detail Name.jpg

File:Chalice Assisi Guccio di Mannaia 4 Detail Christ.jpg

File:Chalice Assisi Guccio di Mannaia 5 Detail St. Peter.jpg

Guccio di Mannaia's work would influence many other goldsmiths of the era, and his chalice would become a "fundamental model for the production of chalices in the decades to come." Tondino di Guerrino, another goldsmith from Siena, most likely studied under him as an apprentice. An image from one of Guccio's seals, that of the rulers of Siena known as the Signori Nove, was reproduced by Simone Martini in his grand Maesta, a fresco that covers an entire wall in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena. Other imagery from this same seal, specifically the orb held by the Madonna and child, can be found also in the gilded-glass panel of a wooden reliquary{{Cite web|url=http://digital.kenyon.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1090&context=perejournal|title=A Framework for Devotion in Trecento Siena: a Reliquary Frame in the Cleveland Museum of Art|last=Brilliant|first=Virginia|date=2014|publisher=Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art and Architecture (Vol 4, Issue 3)|pages=75–76|access-date=19 January 2017}} from about 1347. The gilded glass panel is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, while the wooden frame is in the Cleveland Museum of Art.{{Cite web|url=http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?qu=gilded%20glass&oid=28233|title=Collections Explorer - Object Detail (M.56 & A-1904, id:2)|last=UK.|first=The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge|date=2012-01-01|website=webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk|language=EN-GB|access-date=2017-01-19}} In addition, his work would anticipate that of Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti.{{Cite book|title=Il Tesoro della Basilica di San Francesco ad Assisi|last=Liscia Bemporad|first=Dora|publisher=Editrice Francescana|year=1980|editor-last=Ciardi Dupré dal Poggetto|editor-first=Maria G.|location=Assisi|pages=125|chapter=Oreficerie e Avorio}}

• Goldsmith
• Florentine painting
• Sienese school
• Illuminated manuscript
• Virgin of Jeanne d'Evreux

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• [http://docenti.lett.unisi.it/files/3/1/15/3/Calice_di_Niccol__IV_Assisi_Guccio_di_Mannaia.jpg Detail of Guccio di Mannaia's chalice]

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Category:Year of birth unknown

Category:Year of death unknown

Category:Italian goldsmiths

Category:13th-century Italian artists

Category:People from Siena