Brandano the fisherman

As a model of a further elaboration of the portrait of Brandano, the fisherman which Andreotti refers to in a letter of February 22, ’29 to Aldo Carpi: “I always work to sanctify Brandano who should have been the Baptist and, in these last few days, I think I’m on my way towards the solution, so that I regret having to interrupt. The ideas I have in mind are too many to leave my work: I’ll wait for them to be all gone in order to follow the only one that remains.” News of this tormented elaboration is also found in a letter dated October 12, 1929 to his wife Margherita: “I’m modelling a St John the Baptist... but is it really a St John? Now he’s a St John, now he’s a fisherman, now he’s just ‘Brandano’ fishing. What will I do in the end? What way of proceeding is this? …my God”. As for Brandano (whose real name was Bartolomeo Carosi da Petroio, who lived from 1483 to 1554) Raffaello Franchi (1939) reports: “Sienese prophet who, thrown in the Tiber inside a sack for having exhorted the Pope and the Cardinals in San Peter’s to repent, actually came out of the river all covered with mud, nearly a spectrum redeemer of conscience”. A sculpted image of Brandano with a long beard is kept in Siena, near the Opera del Duomo.

Floor:
Room: Mature Works
Year: 1928-29
Author: Libero Andreotti