Giovanni Maria Nosseni
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Giovanni (Johann) Maria Nosseni (1 May 1544 in
Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...
– 20 September 1620 in
Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...
) was a sculptor and architect from the Italian-speaking
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
(
Ticino Ticino ( ), sometimes Tessin (), officially the Republic and Canton of Ticino or less formally the Canton of Ticino, is one of the Canton of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of eight districts ...
) working at the Saxon court at Dresden.


Life

Giovanni (Johann) Maria Nosseni appeared at the end of January 1575 with a journeyman in Dresden. Nosseni was employed as a painter and sculptor in July 1575. In Weißensee he had come closer to the Lutheran religion by listening to sermons and reading the Bible and changed his faith. In April 1576 he made a journey to Austria. On May 1, 1577, Nosseni married Elisabeth Unruh, the daughter of the former
syndic ''Syndic'' (; Greek: ) is a term applied in certain countries to an officer of government with varying powers, and secondly to a representative or delegate of a university, institution or other corporation, entrusted with special functions or p ...
of
Liegnitz Legnica (; , ; ; ) is a city in southwestern Poland, in the central part of Lower Silesia, on the Kaczawa River and the Czarna Woda. As well as being the seat of the county, since 1992 the city has been the seat of the Diocese of Legnica. L ...
. He brought his father and his brother Pietro to
Torgau Torgau () is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies first met near ...
. On 26 May 1585 he acquired a house in Dresden. He was supposed to "convert it into a common town ornament", set up a workshop and warehouse, but was not granted tax exemption. Elisabeth died on 13 February 1591, and his second marriage was on 3 February 1595 with Christiane Hanisch, the daughter of Mathias Hanisch, the Elector's District Administrator. She also died before him on 29 November 1606, and he married a third time to the twenty-year-old Anna Maria von Rehnen, the daughter of the Mint Master of the Mint of Dresden, Heinrich von Rehnen. On his tomb, the
Nosseni epitaph The ''Nosseni epitaph'' is the epitaph for the Switzerland, Swiss sculptor Giovanni Maria Nosseni, parts of which have been preserved. It was made in 1616 before Nosseni's death and stood in the Sophienkirche until it was severely damaged during ...
, of which fragments are found in the
Stadtmuseum Dresden Dresden City Museum () is the central city museum for the German city of Dresden. Its displays tell the 800-year story of the city and is the largest and most important of the Dresden City Museums (''Städtischen Museen Dresden''). Its art collec ...
, Nosseni and his three wives are depicted.


Works

In 1579 Nosseni had made two stone tables set with cups, bowls and dishes, two busts of Roman emperors and a chair with polished local stones. From 1580 to 1613 he supplied
alabaster Alabaster is a mineral and a soft Rock (geology), rock used for carvings and as a source of plaster powder. Archaeologists, geologists, and the stone industry have different definitions for the word ''alabaster''. In archaeology, the term ''alab ...
and serpentine. In October 1580 Nosseni was suddenly dismissed. He asked to be allowed to collect the finished works from his workshop, but to keep the unfinished ones. During the negotiations that followed, the first ideas for the
Freiberg Freiberg () is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany, with around 41,000 inhabitants. The city lies in the foreland of the Ore Mountains, in the Saxon urbanization axis, which runs along the northern edge of the Elster and ...
funeral chapel came up. In 1583 he was again in the service of the Elector. On 5 May 1585 he was prescribed 20 years to work in the marble quarry he had discovered near Lengefeld in the Erzgebirge. In 1586 and 1587 he discovered black marble at Grünau, red marble at Wildenfels and white marble at Crottendorf. At the beginning of October 1585
Paul Buchner Paul Buchner (June 1531 – 13 November 1607) was a German architect, geometer, carpenter and screw maker from Nuremberg. Life Buchner grew up in Nuremberg and was an apprentice carpenter and screw maker, training under his cousin, Leonhard ...
and Nosseni went to
Freiberg Freiberg () is a university and former mining town in Saxony, Germany, with around 41,000 inhabitants. The city lies in the foreland of the Ore Mountains, in the Saxon urbanization axis, which runs along the northern edge of the Elster and ...
to see burials in the choir of the
Freiberg Cathedral The Freiberg Cathedral or Cathedral of St Mary () is a church of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Saxony in Freiberg, Saxony, Freiberg in Saxony. The term Duomo, Dom, a German synecdoche used for collegiate churches and cathedrals alike, is ofte ...
, "as there a princely crypt would like to be furnished". They built several models. The Saxon elector
Christian I Christian I ''(Christiern I)'' (February 1426 – 21 May 1481) was a German noble and Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union. He was king of Denmark (1448–1481), Norway (1450–1481) and Sweden (1457–1464). From 1460 to 1481, he ...
. commissioned Nosseni to complete the funeral chapel. At the beginning of September 1588 Nosseni went to Italy in order to get sculptors, founders and stonemasons for the monumental building at Freiberg. He also visited his parents in Lugano. On 23 October he arrived in Florence, where he recruited Carlo de Cesare, who later cast the bronze statues in Freiberg. On the way back via Modena he acquired 180 painted and gilded shields (rondelles) for the stable building and in Venice 600 crystal glasses from Murano for the Dresden court. On 31 December he arrived in Dresden. From 1590 onwards, the Belvedere on the Brühlsche Terrasse in Dresden was built according to Nosseni's plans, of which, however, only the lower storey was built until the death of Christian I, and work was stopped here as well. Until its destruction in 1747, the Belvedere was one of the sights of Dresden. Due to this loss, today there is no precise idea of this main work of Nosseni. In 1590 he was granted a privilege for 20 years to mine and use marble, alabaster and Semi-precious stones, which was extended to him for life in 1609. In 1607 Count Ernst of Schaumburg, Ernst von Holstein-Schaumburg began planning his princely mausoleum at Stadthagen and commissioned Nosseni to design it. However, the construction of the building did not begin until the year of Nosseni's death in 1620 and was carried out by his pupil Anton Boten.


See also

* Nosseni Altar


Sources

* * * Damian Dombrowski (2001), ''Die Grablege der sächsischen Kurfürsten zu Freiberg. Ideelle Dimensionen eines internationalen Monuments''. In: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 64, pp. 234–272. * Jürgen Müller (2004), ''Giovanni Maria Nosseni und die Dresdner Kunst zwischen 1580 und 1620''. in: Dirk Syndram (ed.): In fürstlichem Glanz: der Dresdner Hof um 1600, Milan, pp. 34–45
digital access
. * Barbara Marx (2007), ''Giovanni Maria Nosseni als Vermittler von italienischen Sammlungskonventionen und ästhetischen Normen am Dresdner Hof 1575-1620'' in: Sybille Ebert-Schifferer (ed.): ''Scambio culturale con il nemico religioso: Italia e Sassonia attorno al 1600'' (Akten zum internationalen Studientag der Serie "Roma e il nord - percorsi e forme dello scambio artistico", 4./5. April 2005, Rom, Bibliotheca Hertziana), Milan, pp. 99–128. * Walter May (1992), ''Die höfische Architektur in Dresden unter Christian I.'' in: Dresdner Hefte 29, pp. 63–71
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nosseni, Giovanni Maria 1544 births 1620 deaths 16th-century sculptors 16th-century architects Artists from Lugano Swiss sculptors Swiss architects People from the Electorate of Saxony