Affrico and Mensola

Final model for the group of two figures called “Affrico and Mensola”, named after two streams which run down to Florence from the hills between Fiesole and Settignano, flowing into the Arno river at a short distance from one another without ever meeting. In a letter to Aldo Carpi of June 21, 1932 Andreotti wrote “I finished modelling my statues you have already seen” and that he hoped to sell them to the Ottolenghi of Acqui Terme for their mausoleum built by Marcello Piacentini. Andreotti died suddenly on April 19, 1933, and the purchase never took place. Nevertheless the two statues were cast in bronze and are today at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome. In the Acqui Terme mausoleum (completed by Ottolenghi’s son, Astolfo, with great mosaics and frescos by Ferruccio Ferrazzi) no sculpture group was placed. Andreotti however, had not created the group on commission, he had planned it for a fountain, as it appears from an account by Bruno Innocenti, his student at that time, where it is said that Affrico and Mensola “were then like two beautiful streams that ran near Florence at a short distance from one another and that flow into the Arno river without ever meeting”. Hence, the position of the two distanced and nearly isolated figures.

Floor:
Room: Mature Works
Year: 1933 ca.
Author: Libero Andreotti