Before I begin the actual commentary on this incredible fireplace, I think I had better tell you about the family to which it belongs....
To see it from our photographs it will appear to you, more or less, similar to its many other brethren, perhaps only a little more abundant in size...
AND INSTEAD: Only by touching it and seeing it in person will you be able to well understand why I write that HE belongs to a family different from all the other fireplace families that have so far appeared here....
HE is a member of the BELLONI family.
By this name, BELLONI, the antiquarians of Northern Italy and in particular the emilio-romagni antiquarians (always in the mood for jokes) have baptized the rare fireplaces similar to this one in size and weight.. The dimensions you will have seen them posted above, the weight I will tell you, here we are between 4 and 5 quintals against the 100-150 kg of the average “normal” fireplace.
To better make those who read me understand what are the main characteristics of the fantastic family of Belloni, I tell you that I, when I see a fireplace BELLONE, I think of Minister Crosetto or Mr. Begaj, president of Albania, no less than 210 cm high).. Maybe it is because when you see them, you always see them together with Meloni, whose smallness exalts the greatness of her aforementioned companions, whatever it may be, but the fact is that the BELLONE is a NORMAL THING AMPLIFIED IN AN EXAGERATED WAY, a little like the gigantic middle finger pointed towards the sky by the sculptor Cattelan Maurizio...
Fireplaces of this size are very few indeed and ALWAYS the result of private commissions because, considering the difficulties of selling such special objects, no sculpture Maison would have produced a series of them. IN ESSENCE, NO FIREPLACE SIMILAR TO THIS ONE EXISTS IN THE ENTIRE GLOBE.
This mantel comes from a 19th-century palazzo in Milan, Via Solferino.
Its marble is a Bardiglio whose turquoise color is happily quilted with white fretwork, making this particular choice of Bardiglio lighter and more pleasing than the norm.
Stylistically it is a beautiful Baroque, with just and proportionate lines.. The classic shell placed in the center of the fontal is, in essence, a CAPPASANTA seen from the inside, however I will NEVER say that it is a CAPPASANTA, but rather a “COQUILLE SAINT JACQUES”, which is identical to the scallop, but has an entirely different nobility, both because of its birth in a foreign land (in Finisterre, France), and because of its being sacredly linked to the History of the Way of St. James of Compostela. And mind you (especially to the buyers of this hyperbolic fireside): NEVER mention scallops, you might give yourself away....
SAID COMMENTARY PAUSES FOR MULIEBRAL CAUSES (WHEN MY WIFE CALLS, I HAVE TO RUN).WE’LL GET BACK TO OUR BELOVED MANTEL VERY SOON.
