Anton Domenico Gabbiani
1652-1726
Anton Domenico Gabbiani was an Italian late Baroque painter, born in Florence.
He first apprenticed with the Medici court portrait painter Justus Sutterman, then with the Florentine Vincenzo Dandini. In 1673 he arrived in Rome, where he studied under the Medici-sponsored Accademia Fiorentina, led by Ciro Ferri and Ercole Ferrata. This latter tutelage and his style have led Gabbiani to be described as one of the “Cortoneschi” or followers of Cortona.
In 1678-9, he traveled to Venice, where he worked in the studio of Sebastiano Bombelli, returning to Florence in 1680, where he was often patronized by Grand Prince Ferdinando. He painted the portrait of his patron surrounded by musicians.
By 1684, he completed an Annunciation for the Pitti Palace. He completed a “St Francis de Sales in Glory” (1685) for the church of Santi Apostoli. His pupils included Giovanna Fratellini, Ignazio Enrico Hugford, Benedetto Luti, Ranieri del Pace, Giovanni Battista and Tommaso Redi.
Gabbiani’s masterpiece is considered to be his ceiling frescoes for the Palazzina Meridiana, specifically in the Sala Meridiana’ in the Pitti Palace. This work underscores the frequent, yet somewhat ostentatious Medici patronage of arts related to science. The Salone was so named because it encased a Meridian line (a metal strip along floor and wall) with which one could make annotations of solar time, by noting where a beam of sunlight pointed at high noon.
For the Sala Meridiana, Gabbiani adopted a panoramic ceiling. Open sky is depicted above and around the cornice a circumferential horizon of activity. Originally, the room was pierced by a hole in the ceiling, now sealed. At noon, a sun beam through the hole, alit on the meridian strip. The iconography is complex, and was described by his Gabbiani’s pupil Hugford as Time raising up Arts and Sciences to the temple of glory and trampling Ignorance. Allegorical part of the work is the lonely bearded figure on the side, behind cannon and beside an armillary sphere, detached from the lofty bombast. The portrait matches the portrait by Susterman of Galileo, who sits on the sidelines, behind a symbol of his contribution to the science of ballistics. Perhaps he waits Time, who points to him, to defeat ignorance, and rescue him from the ignominy he suffered at the hands of the Roman Inquisition.
