SUMMARY

Francesco Robba (16981757) A Venetian Sculptor and Architect in Baroque Ljubljana

Francesco Robba was born in Venice on 1 May 1698 and was trained as a sculptor in the studio of Pietro Baratta (16681729) between 1711 and 1716. During the years of his apprenticeship he did not only learn to carve marble but he also had the opportunity of becoming acquainted with a vast array of Roman, Florentine and Genoese as well as Venetian models, including some celebrated works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (15981680) and Alessandro Algardi (15981654). Baratta, born in Massa and later most probably trained in Tuscany, could have obtained the most important pieces of his fondo di bottega before his arrival to Venice and also in the following years with the help of his younger, but more successful brother Giovanni (16701747). After ve years of apprenticeship and probably a few more in the role of an assistant in Barattas workshop, by the summer of 1720, Francesco Robba alongside his older colleague Jacopo Contieri (ca. 16761759) left Venice for Ljubljana, then the capital of the Duchy of Carniola and therefore part of the Holy Roman Empire. At the time, Ljubljana was one of the liveliest smaller cultural centres of Central Europe. Not unlike the situation in some other Austrian cities, e.g. Graz, the intellectual aspirations of the educated classes in Ljubljana, as well as the commercial interests and entrepreneurial contacts of several discriminating patrons, were decisively directed towards Italy. After the rst sculptural works for the Jesuit church in Ljubljana that were probably the reason for his arrival, in 1722 Robba married Theresia, the daughter of local stone-cutter Luka Mislej. After his father-in-law died in 1727, Robba took over Mislejs workshop with an established clientele in and beyond Carniola, and at that time he was already called sculptor and architect and a citizen of Ljubljana (he obtained citizenship in 1724). During the long period of his recorded residence in Ljubljana, i.e. until his death on 24 January 1757 (he died on one of his business trips in Zagreb), Robba was regularly allotted the most prestigious public and private commissions emanating from ecclesiastical, aristocratic and bourgeois patrons in Carniola, Carinthia, the Austrian part of Istria and continental Croatia. Robbas early free-standing marble statues and reliefs (ca. 172126, pp. 4563) reveal the strong inuence of his teacher, Baratta, while his best mature works (at least from the late 1730s onwards) are not only marked by a growing self-condence, an ever greater technical virtuosity and formally rened and emotionally expressive style, they also bear witness to his familiarity with the Baroque sculpture of central Italy in general,

Summary 307

and Rome in particular. Not only do we know of his regular visits to Venice where he could become acquainted with the work of his contemporaries Antonio Corradini (16881752), Antonio Gai (16861769), Gaetano Susali (ca. 16961779), Giovanni Marchiori (16961778) and Giovanni Maria Morlaiter (16991781), among others, it also seems possible that after the mid-1730s, perhaps even around 1740, he made a trip to Rome that would explain some important changes in his personal style in the late thirties as well as the decisively Roman design of his most important public work, the Communal Fountain in Ljubljana (contracted in 1743, nished by 1751; pp. 118129, cat. A39). At the time when his Venetian (and Austrian) colleagues were experimenting with their personal styles studying contemporary painting, classical and Cinquecento sculpture as well as theatre performances, Robba not unlike several of his Roman colleagues returned to some of the principles of the art of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and transformed it into a very distinctive personal style. Moreover, Robbas fountain in front of the Town Hall in Ljubljana, his angels (cat. A36) anking the mensa of the eucharistic altar of the Cathedral of Ljubljana, as well as the altarpiece of the Holy Cross (pp. 130135, cat. A40), originally placed in front of the chancel in the nave of the Cathedral of Zagreb, cannot be fully understood and explained without the sculptors good knowledge of some important monuments in Rome. In the present monograph, following the chapters on the state of research (pp. 1015) and on Pietro Baratta and the Venetian Baroque sculpture of the early 18th century (pp. 1735), the oeuvre of Franceco Robba is discussed in chronological order, addressing mostly the questions of style and patronage (pp. 37135). The last part of the monograph seeks to establish Robbas artistic achievements in relation to other Venetian sculptors of his generation (pp. 137155). A separate chapter is dedicated to his workshop in Ljubljana and to a number of his pupils and collaborators, with some closing remarks on his inuence on the local sculptors in and beyond Carniola (pp. 155177).

308 Matej Klemeni: Francesco Robba (16981757)

O avtorju
Matej Klemeni, rojen leta 1971 v Ljubljani, je leta 2000 doktoriral na Oddelku za umetnostno zgodovino Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani, kjer od leta 2001 tudi predava umetnost zgodnjega novega veka na Slovenskem, v Srednji Evropi in v Jadranskem prostoru. Njegovo raziskovalno delo je posveeno predvsem benekemu kiparstvu 17. in 18. stoletja ter benekim umetnost nim importom v srednji Evropi, pa tudi poznogotski sakralni arhitekturi ter drugim vpraanjem zgodovine umetnosti na Slovenskem in njene historiograje. Preko predavanj in objav svoje ugotovitve redno predstavlja v slovenskem in mednarodnem okolju. V ljubljanski Narodni galeriji je bil avtor ali soavtor razstav Francesco Robba in ljubljansko barono kiparstvo (1998), Almanach in slikarstvo druge polovice 17. stoletja na Kranjskem (2005) ter Robbov vodnjak: zgodba mestnega simbola (2010). Aktiven je tudi v organih Slovenskega umet nostnozgodovinskega drutva, ki mu je med letoma 2007 in 2012 predsedoval, od leta 2011 pa je urednik drutvenega Zbornika za umetnostno zgodovino, osrednje slovenske umetnostnozgodovinske znanstvene revije.

About the author

Matej Klemeni (b. 1971, Ljubljana) received his Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Ljubljana in 2000, where he has been teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Early Modern Art since 2001. He was Chair of the Department of Art History at the Faculty of Arts from 2008 to 2012, and acted as President of the Slovenian Association of Art Historians from 2007 to 2012. During his doctoral studies he was a fellow of the Roberto Longhi Foundation in Florence in 1998/99. Dr. Klemeni has published and lectured extensively on various aspects of Baroque art and architecture in Central Europe, Venice and the Veneto, with particular emphasis on the Venetian sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries (e.g. Enrico Merengo, Pietro Baratta, Giovanni Bo nazza, Antonio Corradini, Francesco Robba, Giovanni Marchiori). His other research interests include Late Gothic architecture in Central Europe and the historiography of art history. He has curated three exhibitions for the National Gallery of Slovenia, which are: Francesco Robba and the Highlights of the Venetian Baroque Sculpture in Ljubljana (1998), Almanach and Painting in the Second Half of the 17th Century in Carniola (2005), and The Robba Fountain. The Story of the Citys Symbol (2010).

O avtorju About the author 309