Alessandro Nelli (1842-post 1903) was a Roman entrepreneur: Nelli established the Fonderia Romana, an important artistic bronze casting factory, one of the few in Rome with an industrial character. Nelli materially produced some of the most important bronze groups and statues, sometimes placed in Rome and Italy, sometimes exported abroad, especially to the United States and South America. The aim of the article is to reconstruct the precedents and the context of Nelli's enterprise: these are identified in the tradition of the workshop, in the foundries that were already widespread in Europe in the 16th century - including the Vatican Foundry - and finally in the German, English and especially French artistic-industrial foundries of the 19th century. These comparisons help, among other things, to formulate a series of hypotheses on the factors that led to the crisis and failure of Nelli's enterprise: the main one lies in the lack of an extremely important line in Nelli's catalogue, the small bronzes depicting animals, particularly suitable for the bourgeois public.
Alessandro Nelli (1842-post 1903) fu un imprenditore romano, fondatore della Fonderia Romana, uno importante opificio per la fusione di bronzi artistici, uno dei pochi a Roma dal carattere industriale. Nelli realizzò materialmente alcuni dei principali gruppi e statue in bronzo, talora collocati a Roma e in Italia, talaltra esportati all'estero, soprattutto negli Stati Uniti e nel Sud America. L'articolo ha l'obiettivo di ricostruire i precedenti e il contesto di questa impresa: essi vengono individuati nella tradizione della bottega, nelle fonderie diffuse a livello europeo già nel XVI secolo - fra cui la Fonderia Vaticana - e infine nelle fonderie artistico-industriali tedesche, inglesi e soprattutto francesi del XIX secolo. Questi paragoni aiutano a formulare una serie di ipotesi sui fattori che determinarono la crisi e il fallimento dell'impresa di Nelli: il principale risiede nella mancanza nel catalogo di Nelli di una linea di estrema importanza, i bronzetti di piccole dimensioni raffiguranti animali, particolarmente adatta al pubblico borghese.
Arte e rivoluzione industriale nella fonderia di Alessandro Nelli: origini, modelli e contesto di un’impresa di Roma capitale
paolo coen
2021-01-01
Abstract
Alessandro Nelli (1842-post 1903) was a Roman entrepreneur: Nelli established the Fonderia Romana, an important artistic bronze casting factory, one of the few in Rome with an industrial character. Nelli materially produced some of the most important bronze groups and statues, sometimes placed in Rome and Italy, sometimes exported abroad, especially to the United States and South America. The aim of the article is to reconstruct the precedents and the context of Nelli's enterprise: these are identified in the tradition of the workshop, in the foundries that were already widespread in Europe in the 16th century - including the Vatican Foundry - and finally in the German, English and especially French artistic-industrial foundries of the 19th century. These comparisons help, among other things, to formulate a series of hypotheses on the factors that led to the crisis and failure of Nelli's enterprise: the main one lies in the lack of an extremely important line in Nelli's catalogue, the small bronzes depicting animals, particularly suitable for the bourgeois public.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
