Giovanni di Turino and Lorenzo di Turino
1429-1430
WOLF WITH THE TWINS
Gilded bronze; copper base with blue champlevé enamelling and coats of arms that are champlevé in blue, red, black, white, and green colours; 70 cm (including the base), 55 cm (without the base) x 120 (the wolf), 78 (the base) Siena, Palazzo Pubblico [Government Palace].
From the Sienese chronicles of Tommaso Fecino, in the autumn of 1429: “In the said year the Column bearing the Wolf was created on the side of the Palace: executed by Giovanni Turino, goldsmith”. The commission corresponded to the need of the municipal authorities to endow the Palazzo Pubblico with a civic emblem of a certain visibility, destined to constitute the prototype for later effigies of the Sienese wolf. From documents in the archives, we learn that already in 1428 the Commune had procured a column delegated to supporting the wolf, the execution of which was assigned to Giovanni di Turino and his brother Lorenzo, who was to limit himself merely to a technical contribution.
Luciano Bellosi defines the wolf as being extraordinary, and Alessandro Bagnoli expresses a flattering judgement by describing it as pleasantly stylised, “with its muzzle characterised by an anthropomorphic smile, its fur made evident only along the neck, its legs and tail [executed] in an exquisitely decorative manner”. Inspirations from Donatello can be recognised in the twins, with their well-shaped and solid forms, as well as an adherence to the plasticism of this Master who took over from the elegant influence of Ghiberti, which can usually be averted in the production of Giovanni di Turino.