Sitting dogs

Description

Francesco Ferrucci Romolo, who had worked in the audience wall in 1591 , is remembered by Baldinucci: "a disciple of Andrea Ferrucci , .... much distinguished himself in sculpting in stone all sorts of quadrupedal animals whereby the Most Serene Dukes of Tuscany made great capital of his virtue, by means of which no small amenity and vagueness accrued to the former Garden of Boboli, in various parts of which were situated lions, tigers, wolves, nightingales and other beasts, where crouching as in a place of their retreat among the shadows of the salvatichi ... perfect imitation of animals of this kind and to the expressiveness of their gestures, and of their motions and beginning in what touches on the variety, proportion and quickness of their muscles, we cannot see who else until" his time has done more or better" . Again the Baldinucci informs us that there was a "vague concept" in the arrangement of the animals in the guise of a hunting theater arranged under the ragnaia. However, in Cambiagi's text , the various animals are found arranged for ornamental use in Madama's little garden, around the fishpond, at the entrance to the Isolotto avenues and at the entrance to the now-destroyed 'Labyrinth' of greenery. Most of the sculptures missing from it were probably dispersed following the Leopoldine rearrangement of the Garden, since they are still remembered by Soldini in 1789 in the above-mentioned places. In 1758 the animals were 'restored,' but perhaps almost remade as it turns out for other heavily eroded sculptures in the garden, by the Englishman Jansen on behalf of Peter Leopold.