Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry
The Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry is an Italian bronze casting workshop that produces original sculptures and recreations using the Renaissance-era technique of lost-wax casting. It was established in Florence in 1905.
Works associated with the foundry include the 1998 La Fontana del Porcellino in Florence’s Loggia del Mercato Nuovo, the Arlington Memorial Bridge approach statue, and a sculpture of the United Nations’ Celestial Sphere Woodrow Wilson Memorial. The Foundry also creates original bronze sculptures.
History
Ferdinando Marinelli moved to Florence as a teenager and apprenticed under artisans such as Cusmano Vignali and Gabellini. He learned both stirrup manufacturing and the lost-wax casting technique. In 1905 he established a small workshop on Via de’ Giudei in Florence.In 1915, Marinelli joined Alessandro Biagiotti's Fonderia. After World War I, he purchased the late Gabellini's foundry on Via del Romito. During this era, the foundry created monuments in Piazza Dalmatia Florence, Poggio a Caiano, Barberino Val d’Elsa, and Cerbaia commemorating World War I, and collaborated with artists like Mario Moschi and Odo Franceschi.
In 1925, the Foundry erected a monument of the painter Giovanni Fattori. In 1927, the Florence Chamber of Commerce listed the foundry among local artistic industries. Independent sources describe its continued use of traditional bronze casting methods.