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What is ‘Stucco’? English Interpretations of an Italian Term

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Claire Gapper
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Extract

The English language is noted for the richness of its vocabulary, but it has failed to generate an adequate technical terminology for the discussion of plasterwork. This probably accounts for the importation into English of the Italian term ‘stucco’, to refer to one of the materials used by plasterers; and of the Italian ‘stucchi’, in its anglicized form ‘stuccoes’, to describe the decorative plasterwork executed in ‘stucco’. But the ways in which these terms have been used and their meanings shifted over time, appear to have produced greater confusion rather than clarification, and it is the purpose of this article to examine the process whereby this situation has arisen.

It is not only in English that the use of the term ‘stucco’ now fails to convey any clear meaning to an audience, as was made apparent in a recent summary of the situation in France:

les terminologies notamment employées par les artisans d’une part, et par les historiens de l’art d’autre part, ne recouvrent pas toujours les mêmes matériaux ni les mêmes techniques d’emploi.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 42 , 1999 , pp. 333 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1999

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References

Notes

1 Plâtres, stucs et gypserie, a brochure in the series ‘Le monument et ses artisans’, Caisse nationale des monuments historiques et des sites (1995), p. 3.

2 The first edition of the Lives appeared in 1550; a much-expanded and corrected second edition appeared in 1568. See Rubin, Patricia Lee, Giorgio Vasari: art and history (New Haven & London, 1995)Google Scholar.

3 Vasari, Giorgio, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti Pittori, Scultori ed Architettori … con nuove annotazioni e commenti di Gaetano Milanesi, 9 vols (Florence, 1878-81), VI, pp. 551-53Google Scholar.

4 Bodleian Library MS Canonici Ital 138: Pirro Ligorio, Notebooks, Book VI, fol. 30r and v. ProfessorSmith, Graham (author of The Casino of Pius IV (Princeton, 1977))Google Scholar dates the notebooks to the 1550s.

5 Vasari describes this as a matter of trial and error, but one has to wonder whether Giovanni da Udine was aware of Vitruvius’s description of the lime and marble plaster used by the Romans, which is discussed below.

6 Howard, Deborah, Jacopo Sansovino, 2nd edn (New Haven & London, 1987)Google Scholar.

7 Lotz, W. (revised Howard, D.), Architecture in Italy 1500-1600 (New Haven & London, 1995), p. 27 Google Scholar. A drawing of the palace façade by Marten van Heemskerck is reproduced on p. 29.

8 Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, newly translated by G. Du C. De Vere, 10 vols (London, 1912-15), VIII, p. 77 Google Scholar.

9 Maclehose, L. S., Vasari on Technique (London, 1907), pp. 170-72Google Scholar.

10 Merrifield, Mrs, Original Treatises on the Arts of Painting, 2 vols (London, 1849), 11, 638 Google Scholar.

11 G. Vasari, op. cit., IX, p. 146.

12 This was the opinion of an Italian promoting Italian artists. There is evidence, however, that earlier examples of decorative plasterwork existed in France (see Robinson, G. T., ‘Decorative Plaster-work: Modelled Stucco-work’, Journal of the Society of Arts, vol. XXXIX (1891), pp. 439-55 (p. 445)Google Scholar; and W. Millar, , Plastering — Plain and Decorative (London, 1897), p. 12 Google Scholar). Whether this indicated the presence of a native school of plasterers or earlier Italian immigrants is not clear.

13 Béguin, S. et al., La Galerie François 1er au château de Fontainebleau (Flammarion, 1972), p. 32 Google Scholar.

14 As Martin Biddle has pointed out in ‘Nicholas Bellin of Modena — An Italian Artificer at the Courts of Francis I and Henry VIII’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd series, 29 (1966), pp. 106–21, there is no mention of Bellin working on the Galerie François Ier in the accounts for Fontainebleau; but in a letter to Henry VIII, written in 1540, Sir John Wallop suggests that ‘Modon’ was not only familiar with the Galerie but had ‘wrought there in the begynnyng of the same,’ (State Papers Commission, State Papers Henry VIII, Vol VIII, Part 5, cont. Foreign 1537-42 (1849), p. 484.

15 State Papers Commission, op. cit. That Bellin was also working at Whitehall at some time during the period 1537-41 is borne out by the payment of wages to ‘morter makerse To mothen the Italyon iiij-xxxij’ (British Library MS Royal 14.B.IV.A). It remains uncertain whether the ‘morter’ made for Bellin was applied, under his direction, by the eight ‘Frenche men workyng uppon the Fronte of the Chemnaye For the prevye Chamber’ listed in the same undated entry. It is tempting to suppose that these Frenchmen accompanied Bellin from Fontainebleau, but again there is no supporting evidence for this hypothesis.

16 For a history of Nonsuch and an account of the excavation and its findings, see Dent, J., The Quest for Nonsuch, 2nd edn (Sutton, Surrey, 1970)Google Scholar. Subsequent research was incorporated in the entry for ‘Nonsuch, Surrey’ in Colvin, H. M. (ed.), History of the King’s Works, vol. IV (London, 1982), p. 179–205 Google Scholar; and in Biddle, Martin, ‘The Stuccoes of Nonsuch’, The Burlington Magazine, CXXVI, No. 976 (July 1984), pp. 411–17Google Scholar.

17 I am indebted to Professor Biddle for numerous discussions of this problem and for kindly supplying me with the English translation of Anthony Watson’s Latin which follows. It is Professor Biddle’s opinion that the Nonsuch material is too dense and too hard to consist solely of lime plaster and further scientific analysis will be undertaken before publication of the excavation report.

18 Trinity College, Cambridge MS R.7.22.

19 Florio, John, A Worlde of Wordes, or Most copious, and exact Dictionarie in Italian and English (London, 1598)Google Scholar.

20 For example, in discussing the comparative contributions of Italian and English plasterers to the interior decoration of houses, SirWotton, Henry, who had lived many years in Italy, did not use the term ‘stucco’ at all, but referred only to ‘Plastique’, as a branch of sculpture in which ‘the Plasterer doth make his Figures by Addition’ (The Elements of Architecture (London, 1624), p. 107 Google Scholar.

21 Bettesworth, A. & Hitch, C., The Builder’s Dictionary, 2 vols (London, 1734), 11 Google Scholar. I am indebted to the Editor for this reference.

22 W. Millar, op. cit., p. 12.

23 Drury, Paul, ‘Joseph Rose Senior’s site workshop at Audley End, Essex: Aspects of the development of decorative plasterwork technology in Britain during the eighteenth century’, Antiquaries’ Journal, LXIV (1984), pp. 62–83 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Quoted from the Hamilton MSS by Beard, Geoffrey, Decorative Plasterwork in Great Britain (London, 1975), p. 80 Google Scholar.

25 There are four complete English translations of Vitruvius: Newton, W., The Architecture of M. Vitruvius Pollio (London, Books I–V, 1771; Complete, 1791)Google Scholar; J. Gwilt, , The Architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Polito (London, 1826)Google Scholar; Morgan, M. H., The Ten Books on Architecture (Harvard, 1914)Google Scholar; Granger, F. (transl), Vitruvius — De Architectura (London, 1931-34)Google Scholar. The last is the Loeb Classical Library bilingual edition; the Latin text in this edition gives variant readings, and is the version quoted hereafter.

26 Vitruvius, , De Architectura, translated from the Latin into Italian, with commentary and illustration by Cesare di Lorenzo Cesariano (Como, 1521)Google Scholar. Facsimile published by B. Blom (New York & London, 1968).

27 Vitruvius, , I Dieci Libri dell’Architettura, Tradotti e Commentati da Daniele Barbaro (Venice, 1567)Google Scholar. Facsimile published by Edizioni I Polifilo (Milan, 1987).

28 Barbaro makes use of the term once, in his commentary to Book VII, Chapter III. The Latin phrase ‘ex creto [a variant reading for ‘excepto’, but clearly the one chosen by Barbaro] marmore’ is translated as ‘crivellato marmore’, but glossed in the commentary as ‘le cornicia torno di stucco’.

29 Perrault, Claude, Les dix livres d’architecture de Vitruve, corrigez et traduits nouvellement en François, avec des Notes & des Figures (Paris, 1673)Google Scholar. Facsimile published by Bibliothèque de l’Image (Paris, 1995).

30 Vasari, , Le Vite … con … commenti de Gaetano Milanesi (Florence, 1878–81), 1, p. 165 Google Scholar.

31 PRO SP 1/201/784, transcribed by J. Dent, op. cit., p. 284.

32 Pliny, , Natural History, X, with an English translation by D. E. Eicholz (London, 1962)Google Scholar, Book XXXXVI, Chap II, 1.

33 Eicholz renders ‘in albario opere’ as whitewash, which makes very little sense. Whitewash is a distemper, consisting of crushed chalk mixed with water; lime plaster must be what was intended.

34 A. Clifton-Tayor, , The Pattern of English Building (London, 1972), p. 351 Google Scholar.

35 A complete account of the dispute is contained in Kelsall, Frank, ‘Liardet versus Adam’, Architectural History, 27 (1984), pp. 118-26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 See Biddle, Martin, ‘A Fontainebleau Chimneypiece at Broughton Casde in Oxfordshire’, in The Country Seat: Studies presented to Sir John Summerson, ed. Colvin, H. M. and Harris, John (London, 1970), pp. 9–12 Google Scholar.