Luigi Frullini Folio Stand, Portrait of Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498)
Luigi Frullini, Florence, Italy c. 1870s
The front panel of this folio stand is dominated by a carved profile portrait of Girolamo Savonarola of Ferrara, the Dominican friar and prior of San Marco in Florence. The gilded Latin tablet beheath the bust, translated from latin, reads “The likeness of Girolamo of Ferrara prophet sent by God.” Both the hooded profile and the inscription follow Fra Bartolomeo’s famous portrait of Savonarola, painted around 1498 and still stands at San Marco.
The Cabinet Symbolism
The central figure sits within a wreath of flowering, thorned branches that cross and are bound together at the base. Thorns are often a symbol of martyrdom. Above, the crest carries a cartouch with the Florentine lily (giglio), flanked by rosettes and crowned by a grotesque bat-like mask with spread wings. The case rests on acanthus-carved scroll supports and lions-paw feet.
Savonarola preached against Medici rule and worldly excess, and was hanged and burned in the Piazza della Signoria in 1498. In the 19th Century, as Italy unified, he was revived as a symbol of Florentine reform and civic liberty, and his image became a popular subject for the city’s neo-Renaissance carvers.
Frullini (1839-1897) was the leading Florentine woodcarver of his day, and his work was shown at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial and sought by wealthy American collectors.