Aldobrandini Tazze

The Aldobrandini Tazze are a set of 12 silver-gilt standing cups in the shallow tazza shape (plural tazze), sometimes described as bowls or dishes. They are outstanding examples of Renaissance metalwork, described by John Hayward as "the most impressive single monument of Italian and perhaps European goldsmith's work of the 16th century",^[1] and by the Victoria and Albert Museum as "one of the most spectacular groups of 16th century silver to survive".^[2]

Each tazza comprises a shallow bowl mounted on a high foot and stem. A vertical pedestal rises from the centre of the bowl, topped by a standing figurine of one of the first Roman emperors whose lives are described in The Twelve Caesars by the Roman author Suetonius.^[3] The inside surface of each bowl is chased with four scenes from Suetonius's life of the relevant emperor.

The tazze have a complicated and somewhat uncertain history and provenance. At one time they were attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, but that attribution is no longer considered correct. Later it was considered that they may have been made by artists from the Netherlands, or possibly from Augsburg or Nuremberg in Germany, perhaps working in Italy. More recent scholarship by Julia Siemon indicates they were made in the southern Netherlands, possibly for a Habsburg patron, perhaps Archduke Albert VII of Austria, towards the end of the 16th century, and then acquired by a member of the Aldobrandini family before 1603.^[4][5] Different bowls have slightly different styles, suggesting that a team of silversmiths was involved.^[4] The set was originally owned by the Aldobrandini family and their descendants until at least 1769, and remained together in a single collection until at least 1861. The vessels were originally plain "white" silver, but were gilded in the decade after 1861. The group was then dispersed and examples are now held by several different museums and private collectors. In the late 19th century, six of the original bases, with restrained classically-inspired fluting on the foot and stem, were replaced with more flamboyantly decorated 16th century bases, possibly of Spanish origin. Over time, the interchangeable parts of several tazze, most noticeably the bowls and figurines, have been mixed, so a bowl showing scenes from the life of one emperor may now be found in a collection with the figurine of a different emperor.^[3]

The 12 tazze were reunited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 2014, at the start of a major research project. This endeavor resulted in an exhibition organized by Siemon, The Silver Caesars: A Renaissance Mystery, which was accompanied by a volume of essays by the same title. During the exhibition, which was on view from 12 December 2017 until March 11, 2018. The exhibition then traveled to Waddesdon Manor in England in 2018, where it was on view from 18 April until 22 July.^[6][7] Videos exploring how the Nero tazza and Vitellius tazza depict their Suetonian content were created by Siemon and Beard for display in the exhibition, and can be viewed on the Metropolitan Museum's YouTube channel. During the exhibition, the tazze were displayed in public for the first time since the mid-19th century.^{[5][8][9][10]}