Giovanni di Turino

SIENESE WOLF AND CIVIC COATS OF ARMS

ca. 1427

Small plaque of embossed copper, chiselled, engraved and partially
cold-gilded; traces of champlevé enamel; 14 cm in diameter

Siena, Palazzo Pubblico, Civic Museum,

The small round plaque with a lilied frame was to have decorated a manufacture of large proportions, as can be intuited from the presence of the small marginal holes for the nails.

On a background panelled in diamond shapes, the slab is dominated by the embossed profile of the wolf who is nursing the twins.
Its muzzle is pointed towards the left; in the background can be noted three slender leafy trees, which are also embossed.

In the upper zone are depicted in relief two large escutcheons: the left one has a standard (per fess with silver and black) and the right one bears the arms of the captain of the local militia (in red, with a silver rampant lion).

The manufacture can be classified stylistically in the phase of Giovanni di Turino’s strict Ghibertian observation, as can be noted from the vigorous
and elegant Gothic linear style that is perceptible in the animal’s anatomy, with its bony profile, and tense, tapered  muzzle.
The heraldic lion on the right of the coat of arms, with its sinuous and calligraphic line, shows us all of Turini’s late-Gothic nature.

Critics believe that, in showing an analogous layout,  the wolf delineated on the small plaque supplied the inspirational model for the later bronze effigy erected on the column at the Palazzo Pubblico.
The work forms a part of the series of numerous commissions assigned to the Turini family by the Commune and characterised by the presence of civic symbols and emblems.
The activity of the father, Turino di Sano, for the Commune is attested to several times by fountains. He forged numerous works which presented the figure of the wolf, although today none of his production remains for us.