{"id":27080,"date":"2025-06-11T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/areademo.beculture.it\/?p=27080"},"modified":"2025-05-27T09:30:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T07:30:05","slug":"mercurio-giambologna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/areademo.beculture.it\/en\/mercurio-giambologna\/","title":{"rendered":"Giambologna\u2019s Mercurio: an unrivalled icon of Florentine Mannerism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Determined, talented and tenacious, Giambologna \u2013 born Jean de Boulogne \u2013 is one of the leading figures of sixteenth-century Italy, and even today, anyone visiting Florence<\/a> cannot help but admire his works. Among the most remarkable, celebrated and widely reproduced is certainly his Mercurio volante<\/em><\/strong> (1580, Florence, Museo del Bargello), now a true symbol of Mannerism<\/a> and its daring formal balancing acts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mercurio volante<\/em> by Giambologna<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A nude youth, his body strong and polished, stretches lightly upward in a gesture that defies gravity. His right leg is raised and bent backward, echoing the elegant reach of his hand pointing skyward. His torso, supple and dynamic, twists in a graceful spiral, creating a composition of incredible movement. The entire body pivots around the left leg \u2013 the only, slender point of support \u2013 which rests with an almost unreal grace on the breath of wind-blown from the head of Zephyrus, the west wind.
This is Mercury, messenger of the gods: the winged helmet, winged feet, and the caduceus, symbol of his role between gods and men, are his traditional attributes. Yet Giambologna<\/strong><\/a> goes beyond mere iconography<\/strong>.
His Mercury floats in the air, weightless, almost immaterial<\/strong> \u2013 suspended between heaven and earth in an equilibrium that seems impossible, yet perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mercurio
Mercurio volante<\/em>, Giambologna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The illusion of flight is rendered with extraordinary mastery: the vertical tension<\/strong> is perfectly conveyed through the subject\u2019s musculature and motion, and every line of the sculpture draws the eye upward. Elegant and graceful, this work reveals the full extent of Giambologna\u2019s skill, as he masterfully interprets the hallmarks of the late<\/strong> <\/strong>Renaissance<\/strong><\/a>: the serpentine form, the pursuit of height, and a flair for compositional and structural daring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These features are also present in other masterpieces of his, such as the famous Ratto delle Sabine<\/a> (1583, Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi), but here they appear with their full expressive force, amplified by the many vantage points the sculpture offers.
And as we\u2019ll see, this power was already exercised by the Flemish sculptor in earlier versions and would continue to express in later ones<\/strong> \u2013 inspired by illustrious precedents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ratto
Ratto delle Sabine<\/em>, Giambologna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Patronage, precedents and copies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Mercurio volante<\/em> kept at the Museo del Bargello<\/a> was created in 1580 for Cardinal Ferdinando de\u2019 Medici and was intended for the Medici villa in Rome, as the crowning element of a fountain whose basin made from a bowl of green Egyptian breccia.
But this was not the artist\u2019s first attempt at depicting an airborne Mercury<\/strong>. The initial commission in this long and successful series did not come from the Medici circle.
We know that Jean de Boulogne arrived in Italy around the age of twenty and went straight to Rome to study classical antiquities first-hand. He later moved to Florence, where he came into contact with the Florentine nobility and gained recognition for his marble and bronze sculptures, as well as his fountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was, in fact, a public commission that brought him to Bologna in 1563. Papal vice-legate Pier Donato Cesi tasked him with creating the Fontana del Nettuno<\/strong>, designed by architect Tommaso Laureti, as part of Pope Pius IV\u2019s urban renewal plan.
During this work, which still stands today in the city\u2019s main square, Giambologna received another commission from Cesi \u2013 this time for the Archiginnasio, home to Bologna\u2019s prestigious university. According to Cesi\u2019s words, a \u201cbronze image of Mercury<\/strong> descending from the heavens\u201d was to be placed \u201cin the centre of the courtyard on a vermiculated stone column\u201d \u2013 a symbol of reason and divine truth, a reminder to students.
The project was never completed, though a model survives at the city\u2019s Civic Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"bozzetto
Bozzetto del Mercurio alato<\/em>, Giambologna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Still, Jean did not abandon the idea. In fact, the Mercurio volante was highly appreciated by Cosimo de\u2019 Medici<\/strong>, who in 1564 commissioned a version roughly the size of an adolescent boy to be sent as a diplomatic gift to Maximilian II of Habsburg<\/strong>, Emperor and brother of Joanna of Austria, betrothed to his son Francesco de\u2019 Medici. It also pleased Cosimo\u2019s other son, the second Grand Duke of Tuscany \u2013 the aforementioned Ferdinando I \u2013 who in 1598 sent a copy to the King of France<\/strong>, Henry IV (often identified with the bronze now held at the Louvre in Paris). The versions multiplied \u2013 today examples can be found in museums in Dresden and Vienna \u2013 with formal variations that increasingly emphasised lightness and movement, aided by the addition of Zephyrus\u2019s breath, which heightens the sense of upward, aerial projection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mercurio
Mercurio<\/em>, Giambologna (Louvre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Possible sources of inspiration<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Greek god captured<\/a> in the act of flying was not an entirely new subject, and Giambologna clearly drew from several sources. One of the most likely is the Mercurio painted by<\/strong> <\/strong>Raffaello<\/strong><\/a> in the early 1500s<\/strong> in one of the pendentives at Villa Farnesina in Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Loggia
Loggia di Amore e Psiche, Raffaello<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But it is from Cellini that the young Flemish sculptor inherited the fluid quality that defines the sculpture, which seems to hover in mid-air and transcend the limits of its material: Cellini\u2019s own <\/strong>Mercurio<\/em><\/strong> (1552\u20131553), originally housed in one of the niches of the <\/strong>Perseo<\/em><\/strong> base<\/strong> and now preserved at the Museo del Bargello, proves the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"mercurio
Mercurio<\/em>, Benvenuto Cellini<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An immortal technique<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Over time, the Medici family\u2019s esteem for Giambologna grew to the extent that he became a salaried artist and, around 1567, he was allowed to set up his workshop in the second courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio.
By 1587, he moved his studio to Borgo Pinti and, at the height of his fame, began employing assistants capable of reproducing his wax models in bronze<\/strong>. In the Renaissance, the preferred technique for creating bronze works was lost-wax casting, which involved making a wax model, covering it with a mould, melting the wax, and pouring molten bronze into the resulting cavity. This delicate method required great skill and experience and is still used today by some of the most prestigious fine art foundries \u2013 including the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli in Florence<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n