It has dominated Carrara’s cathedral square with its imposing bulk for centuries: it is a marble statue of colossal proportions, depicting Andrea Doria (1466-1560) as Neptune, but for the locals it has always been, simply, the Giant. It was made by the great Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560), a historic rival of Michelangelo and Benvenuto Cellini, in a fascinating affair recalled, in great detail, by Giorgio Vasari in his Lives de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani (1568) .
Bandinelli frequented the Carrarese milieu for a long time, always dealing personally with the purchase of marble for his works: the first contract with the quarrymen of Torano dates back to 1523, when he purchased a large block for the group of Hercules and Cacus (in Piazza della Signoria, Florence), and his presence is documented regularly until 1558, when Baccio was engaged in the search for marble for the Neptune (destined for the Florentine fountain of the same name) later sculpted by Ammannati.
In the fall of 1528, the Twelve Reformers (chosen to refound the Republic of Genoa) had allocated funds to erect a bronze monument to Doria, the admiral and condottiere who had just liberated the city from French occupation. The following year Bandinelli had been commissioned, with the decision made to execute the work in marble for the price of 1,000 gold ducats. A drawing, now preserved in the British Museum in London, reveals the appearance of this first project: Andrea Doria, “pater et liberator” of the Genoese, was to be represented nude, in the old-fashioned manner, as Neptune, with a trident in his right hand and a small dolphin in his left.
Baccio collected a generous down payment but had no way of committing himself to the work, as he had to complete the Florentine commissions first: his attitude ended up arousing the wrath of Cardinal Girolamo Doria, who, when he met him in Bologna, attacked the sculptor to the sound of shouting, threatening to have him put “in the galley.”
Finally, in 1537, an agreement was reached between the parties, and Bandinelli, having chosen a block roughly three meters high, began work on the monument, not in Genoa, as had initially been requested, but in Carrara. The expedient could undoubtedly lower the costs of transport by sea (which were calculated on the basis of the weight of the marble), but behind the decision to sculpt the Neptune in the shadow of the Apuan Alps lay the sculptor’s desire for independence, who did not like the cardinal’s constant interference. The sculpture should have been finished in early 1738 but, a few months earlier, Bandinelli clashed again with the Genoese, who demanded his presence in the city to deliver more money to him, and he abandoned the work for good.
Thecurrent appearance of theGiant reflects this complex history: the statue is little more than sketched in some details (such as the legs) and more worked in other segments (the torso and drapery). The surface still shows, in many places, the marks of the irons used for working, with an effect that may recall the much celebrated Michelangelo’s “unfinished,” and that ends up giving an enigmatic and titanic aura to the whole. Andrea Doria is no longer nude, as in the London drawing, but covered just enough by a cloth, as was more in keeping with the dignity of a living personage, and the trident, which he was supposed to hold in his left, has not been preserved.
The colossus lay, in a workshop in old Carrara, for almost thirty years, until Marquis Alberico I Cybo-Malaspina, a Genoese by birth, decided on its reuse (1564): the Neptune was then raised on a sturdy plinth and fitted with a large marble basin. Since then, the two large dolphins, adapted as fountain mouths, have enlivened the square with the continuous roar of water, and the statue, having forgotten the tribute to Doria, is dedicated to “Neptuno maris moderatori” (Neptune, governor of the sea), as one of the inscriptions placed by Alberico on the base of the monument reads.
The fountain, for centuries at the center of town life, still provides drinking water, and a rudimentary marble step, placed at the side of the basin, allows even modern visitors to refresh themselves by renewing an ancient and popular ritual.
The stern profile of Bandinelli’sGiant (Zigànt in the local dialect), indelibly marks the urban landscape of the city, of which it is almost as much a symbol as the wheel of the municipal coat of arms, and has the power to evoke, with its marble vigor, all the charm of sixteenth-century Carrara.