During the fourteenth century, Siena achieved a European pre-eminence in the field of goldsmiths’ work, even challenging the traditional supremacy of Paris for such luxury items. Unusually, many of the key Sienese goldsmiths are known by name, several with a number of attributable surviving works. This has allowed for a type of ‘personality’-based art history that is unusual in media other than painting and sculpture. Research over the last century has gradually identified one Sienese family as of the greatest importance, the family ‘dei Tondi’, whose most well-known personality is Tondino di Guerrino, maker of the extraordinary chalice today at the British Museum. Based on an important cache of new documents, along with a detailed look at the objects themselves, this paper explores the fortunes of the family ‘dei Tondi’, and looks particularly at workshop practice and artistic identity. It also studies the impact of different artistic personalities on goldsmiths’ work made in Siena over the course of the century.
Glyn Davies completed his PhD, Chalices in Central and Northern Italy: Forms, Uses and Meanings 1200-1520, at The Courtauld Institute of Art in 2014 under the supervision of Dr Joanna Cannon.