Sara Faralli

Gian Francesco Gamurrini’s Autobiografia – written at the age of 86 – traces key moments in an entire life dedicated to archaeology and to protecting the cultural  heritage of the Arezzo area from plundering by speculators and art dealers, especially after the suppression of ecclesiastical bodies. This was a threat to be avoided at all costs, since the French occupation had resulted in the dispersal of part of the art treasures on the international market. Giamarrini’s work as a librarian was carried out with the same civic passion as his archaeological activities and his defence of cultural heritage as conducive  to the growth of a national consciousness. These pages describing his travels in Italy to document its epigraphic evidence, are on a par with Goethe’s Italian Journey, not so much for the description of landscapes and monuments, as for the wondrous attention  – typical of 18th-19th century peripatetic literature – to the people he encountered, which brings them alive and allows us a glimpse of life at the time. The volume is enriched by the essays of Sara Faralli, Gulio Firpo, Andrea Gaucci, Giulio Paolucci.

Ever since the Middle Ages, the Arezzo area has attracted the attention of collectors and scholars of antiquities, due to the thin and lustrous fictile vessels that were frequently unearthed there in considerable quantity. These vessels with a coral-red coating, often decorated in relief with plant motifs and figured scenes, aroused curiosity and admiration, to the extent that Giorgio Vasari praised their “most delicate carvings” and Grand Tour travellers mentioned them frequently in their diaries. In the wake of this interest, in 1841 Marco Antonio Fabroni, an Arezzo scholar of local antiquities and director of the city’s museum, published Storia degli antichi vasi fittili aretini. This was the first monograph on this significant class of pottery tableware, now known in the field of archaeological studies as terra sigillata, of which Arezzo was an important production centre.  Accompanied by nine plates reproducing 189 finely detailed, quality drawings made by the artist and sculptor Ranieri Bartolini, the volume was intended to provide an overview of what was then known about these vessels. The analytical and pragmatic approach is what makes it worth republishing today.