palaces. The paintings were removed form the walls of the studiolo in 1673
and taken to Florence (Raggio 1996). It was not until the end of the nine-
teenth century, however, when a local family owned the ducal palace, that
such major architectural fixtures as chimneypieces, door surrounds, and
decorative ceilings were removed. In 1874 the studiolo was bought by Prince
Filippo Massimo Lancellotti. He had the studiolo dismantled (except for the
paintings, which had already been removed) and moved to his villa in the
hills of Frascati, near Rome. The first major restoration of the studiolo
took place before it was installed in Lancellotti’s villa.^6 A note discovered
in one of the studiolo’s doors confirmed the restoration and dated its com-
pletion to September 1877. In 1937 the German art dealer Adolph Loewi
purchased the studiolo from the Lancellotti family. Loewi’s workshop in
Venice executed the second restoration (Fig. 3).^7 In 1939 the Metropolitan
Museum of Art purchased the studiolo and displayed it until 1967. The cur-
rent conservation campaign started in 1987 with a rotating team of conser-
vators, conservation fellows, and students. The project was completed in
April 1996 and the room opened to the public in May 1996; the exhibition
included a didactic presentation about the history and conservation treat-
ment of the room.The Gubbio studiolo was commissioned, designed, and skillfully executed
during the height of the Italian intarsia tradition, which started in the
middle of the fourteenth century and lasted roughly two hundred years.
From the second quarter ofthe fifteenth centuryonward, the intarsiatori
applied linear perspective (the representation of three-dimensional space
ona plane surface) in their work and soon were given the honorary title
i maestri della prospettiva,“the mastersof perspective” (Ferretti 1982). The
Florentines in particular had mastered the technique of creating a perfectThe Intarsia Panels
482 Wilmering
Figure 3
The Gubbio studiolo in the workshop of
Adolph Loewi in Venice in 1938 or 1939,
shortly after the restoration of the room had
been completed. The configuration of the
panels is not accurate. This staged setting of
the studiolo was intended to show as much of
the room as possible to prospective buyers.