Cod: 463369

Period: Early 20th century

Mario Minari (Vignale di Traversetolo, 1894 – Vairo di Palanzano, 1962) Embossed plate decorated with zoomorphic and vegetal motifs Diameter 58 cm Signed at the top Reference bibliography: "Mario Minari (1894-1962): from Traversetolo to Rome and back" / edited by Anna Mavilla; with a text by Giancarlo Gonizzi.- Traversetolo: Municipality of Traversetolo, 2024- Renato Brozzi Museum 139 p.: ill.; 19 x 20 cm A goldsmith and sculptor, author of refined embossed works with animal subjects and precious religious items, Mario Minari shares surprising analogies in his life path with Brozzi, and for a large part of both their lives, a friendship and close collaboration. The common attendance at Giuseppe Baldi's Foundry in Traversetolo, a sort of school-workshop where the artistic careers and personal stories of many talented young people at the dawn of their careers intertwined; attending, at different times but with the same difficulties, the Royal Institute of Fine Arts in Parma; the anonymous work of imitating ancient pieces commissioned by the antiquarian Ferruccio Brasi, a shrewd talent scout who had a shop in Parma in Strada al Duomo; their common participation in the war; finally, the fatal attraction to the Eternal City, the subsequent move in the early twenties to live with an aunt residing there, and the beginning of a close collaboration with Brozzi, who was a guest at Villa Strohl-Fern. A collaboration that ranged from small commissions, entrusted to him by the more famous Brozzi (who, however, always retained the final paternity of the work) when he was overloaded with assignments, to works of remarkable commitment and extraordinary results, such as the restoration of the so-called Treasure of Marengo, completed in February-March 1936 after being practically locked together in a laboratory specially set up at the National Museum of the Baths to avoid removing the precious artifacts from the watchful control of the Superintendence. After restoring the silver pieces of the Treasure to their ancient splendor, they were the subject of a brief but highly celebrated exhibition in Rome, before finally arriving at the Museum of Antiquities in Turin at the behest of Cesare De Vecchi di Val Cismon, then Minister of Public Education. However, while press reports and official photo albums illustrating the extraordinary restoration widely praised Brozzi, nothing was mentioned about Minari, who from this moment began to harbor a never-dormant resentment towards his colleague, feeling marginalized and excluded. This marked the beginning of a profound crisis in the relationship between the two artists, which had been (at least apparently) cordial until then, and which gradually worsened until it exploded on June 17, 1943, with a rancorous and bitter letter from Minari accusing Brozzi of defaming and denigrating his art. From here began an increasingly acrimonious polemic that would only conclude in 1948, when Nino Grossi, Brozzi's cousin and commissioned by him, settled all relations between the two by paying Minari (who had been living permanently in Vairo since 1940, in the hospitable palace of friends Basetti) the remaining dues for his professional services, including accrued interest. What fueled the polemic between the two was their different conception of artistic work: while Brozzi remained anchored to an elite and special craftsmanship and the noble virtuosity of the "unique piece," the result of the loving mastery of extraordinary artisan-artists, Minari pragmatically understood that to expand the market for decorative art objects, an offer was needed that, while always characterized by extreme refinement and special technical expertise, was replicable (like his highly sought-after religious-themed copper pieces, stamped and chiseled), and therefore responded to the needs of contemporary use, anticipating the industrial nature of modern productions, within which even the artist-artisan was called to play a central role in the wider dissemination of all possible