Introduction

Giovanni Maffezzoli was undoubtedly the best pupil of Giuseppe Maggiolini (Parabiago 1738 – 1814), in fact he did not copy his models, like others, but transformed them or used his own: terrain of boulders and bushes, fragments of capitals and ancient columns , architectural views and ancient cities are among his most striking examples. A group of drawings attributed to him found precisely in bear witness to this propensity of his Beetle Fund of the artistic collections of the Municipality of Milan, taken by the painter Giuseppe Levati (Concorezzo 1739 – Milan 1828) whom Maffezzoli knew through frequenting his master's workshop.

L'collecting interest in furniture and inlay panels (a different and in some ways new genre, perhaps due to the'interest and the feedback found in the taste of Cremonese clients) is constant between the different decades for the'evident exclusivity and refined execution that certainly make these creations one of the best'minor art in the field of real works d'art.

The life

Giovanni Maffezzoli was born in Cremona in 1774 in the parish of San Siro e Sepolcro (the church that is still located in via Aselli) to Felice Maffezzoli and Barbara Alborni. His father Felice, born in 1741 also'His father is a carpenter by profession legnamaro (gilder and cabinetmaker).

We know that Giovanni lived in the house with his parents until 1788, when he was 14 years old, almost certainly in constant contact with the father's laboratory, from where, presumably, he learned the first rudiments of the trade. In 1789 he was sent to Parabiago, to work as a workshop Giuseppe Maggiolini, where he remained for 6 years, punctuated by a period in Milan, the city where his master opened a shop.

The merit of Maggiolini is that he was the first to bring back into vogue, achieving excellent quality, the method of'inlay in the neoclassical period, bringing him back among the nobles'upper middle class of the time.

That of'inlay was a method in vogue as early as the fourteenth century, adopted by Carthusian monks, progenitors of this technique, at the time however limited to a type of inlay with wooden, bone and mother-of-pearl dowels with geometric motifs, used to delimit panels of furniture in a style that could be defined as Arabesque (brought to Europe perhaps after the various Crusades in Holy Land and resumed in the 20th century, in our personal view, from Carlo Bugatti, the most important exponent of'Italian cabinet making'Art Nouveau between 1890 and 1910) which then evolved in the second half of the fifteenth century, in a different and more complex way, on the panels of choirs or sacristy cabinets, such as the one preserved in the Civic Museum of Cremona executed in 1477 by Giovanni Maria Platina (Piadena ? 1455 – Mantua 1500) in which, always surrounded by Carthusian inlaid frames, the subjects of the inlays range from portraits of Gave me, to still lifes with musical instruments, lutes, accompanied by displays of fruit.

Giuseppe Maggiolini's biographer, Giacomo Antonio Mezzanzanica, speaks of Maffezzoli as the master's best pupil and describes him as a boy, coming from a wealthy family (remember that Maffezzoli knows how to read and write, something not to be taken for granted at the time, and the prerogative of a few) in'Maggiolini workshop, where he received room and board in exchange for his work and the teachings he received. He therefore speaks about his skill and ability in doing so'inlay of figures and landscape which earned him several awards from'Academy of Milan.

His return to our city can be dated to 1794, the year in which he married, again in the parish of San Siro e Sepolcro. This return also seems to be due to the request of his father, no longer in good physical condition, to help him with his work.

The relationships with his father, however, are not idyllic, both for a different way of conceiving work, for the different artistic education received, and for economic reasons, Felice is indebted to his son, for loans received and for lack of work compensation . From his mother's death in 1806 until 1817, he supported his father financially, paid his debts and in exchange received some of his real estate as an inheritance. About a year after these events, on 17 May 1818, Giovanni Maffezzoli died of tuberculosis in his home in Vicolo Bissone, without leaving any will regarding his life and artistic production.

Description

The inlay panel, a mosaic of at least twenty fruitwoods and native inlay essences, is in an excellent state of preservation, without any missing parts, with a patina, never restored with its original paint still present.
In our opinion, it refers to 1795 (at the latest by the end of 1700, upon his return to Cremona after the period of apprenticeship in Milan) due to subjects and characters similar to the furniture present in Palazzo Mina Bolzesi, it depicts an episode of 11 characters inserted in a landscape mountain.

The main character, sitting under the scenographic canopy, perhaps Antonio Canova (a'hypothesis that seems suggestive and intriguing to us: Antonio Canova is a contemporary of Maffezzoli; there is a semblance of resemblance to some portraits of the period; Possagno, Canova's birthplace, is a mid-mountain town like the one in the background; confirms the meaning of the representation), is observing a kneeling stonemason, of mature age, who is carving a capital with leaf leaves'acanthus, and at the same time indicates a virile half-bust of Roman classicism to two spectators who are watching attentively. Near the stonemason, sitting on his back, there is probably a young student who follows the work phases. Proceeding along the diagonal line that leads towards the lower left margin we see a mother, also'she with her gaze turned towards the scene, with a newborn baby in her arms and her little son standing there'accompanies near a man sitting on his back, perhaps the father, or perhaps someone from whom he is asking for charity: the clothes, the bare feet, in fact place them in a miserable condition and recall the seventeenth-century paintings of the Lombard tradition and beyond, which, starting from Caravaggio, ending with Giacomo Ceruti (Milan 1698 – 1767), they idealize the reality of the people of the last.

In the background, still from behind, a character points to another man hidden from our view by a large boulder, of which only part of the face can be glimpsed (perhaps a self-portrait of Maffezzoli himself, in the manner of painters when they paint themselves in their works, as observers in the background of them), the road to reach the town (Possagno?) which forms the backdrop immersed in vegetation and trees, at the foot of half mountains in a sky covered with clouds.

On the left the plant, perhaps a centuries-old oak, and the broken trunk of a'other, act as a scenographic counterpart to the stage with curtains and various architectural ruins: a fluted half-column with capital, a marble base for a statue, a bas-relief depicting a bust in a crown of'laurel, a part of the architrave supported by a broken wooden beam to which a little dog with a wagging tail seems to direct its attention for its needs.

Finally, the lower part, a mixture of variegated rocks that remind us of the studies of Alfredo Signori (Cremona 1913 – 2009) and bushes in which a large-leafed plant reigns supreme that seems taken from the vegetation of a painting by Antonio Campi ( Cremona 1522 – 1587).

The inlay is not signed but there are various reasons to consider it undoubtedly the work of our cabinetmaker:

• The Cremonese origin;
• The typology of the different woods, of local origin; an example of this is the dark fillet that delimits the perimeter and frames it, in drowned oak, a wood that is often used to replace the much more valuable and unavailable ebony in the inlay furniture of Cremonese neoclassicism;
• The mixture of architecture and ruins, in a naturalistic context, which finds confirmation in comparisons with his drawings from the Maggiolini Fund, see for example the column with the base in the foreground;

• L'skill and mastery in'execution of a'complex work, a non-trivial subject that presumes a cultural background, the ability to insert it into a perspective scenography motivated by a knowledge of design that knows how to take into account, for example, proportions or'use of shadows (the large plant in the foreground, the side of the large marble boulder from which the face of the presumed Maffezzoli can be glimpsed, the base of the'architrave, the side of the statue holder, the right side of the curtains, the small rocks and stones at the base), therefore a set of factors pertaining to a master;
• Last but certainly most probative to refute it'autography is the confirmation given to us by Dr. Riccardo Arcari, certainly the most authoritative to give an opinion, due to the number of works and their characteristics, studied and observed.

To conclude, we hope that a scientific biography will be published, perhaps with a corpus of news and unpublished photographs to significantly complete the study of this Cremonese artist, to give him the prominence he deserves in the scale of values ​​of the'European neoclassical cabinetmaking.
An invitation to'friend Dr. Riccardo Arcari to continue his research and give voice to the merit of his studies.

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