The author dedicates this article to Charles D. Wright and John Kitchin,
retired chief conservation officers of Furniture and Woodwork at the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and to Bertus F. Boekhoff, retired
senior furniture conservator at the Historical Museum of Amsterdam, for
sokindly and generously handing him the tools of his profession.
The conservation treatment of the Gubbio studiolo could not
have been achieved without the support, advice, and interest of a number
of key players. The author would like to express his gratitude to Olga
Raggio, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chair of the Department of European
Sculpture and Decorative Arts, for her guidance and continuous support of
the conservation treatment of the Gubbio studiolo. He is grateful to Tony
Frantz, conservator in charge of the Sherman Fairchild Center for Objects
Conservation, for his trust and encouragement during the many years of
conservation work. He also owes a great debt to George Bisacca, conserva-
tor at the Sherman Fairchild Center for Paintings Conservation, who gen-
erously shared his vast knowledge of Italian intarsia, woodwork, and
technology. Over the years a number of conservators, conservation fel-
lows, and students have been part of the Gubbio conservation team. The
author would especially like to thank and acknowledge Susan Klim, for-
merly associate conservator, and Mechthild Baumeister, associate conser-
vator, as well as John Canonico, Rudy Colban, Mark Minor, Fred Sager,
Pavol Andrasko, Albert Neher, Dennis Degnan, Ralph Stoian, Birgitte
Uhrlau, Carmen Chizzola, John Childs, Jack Flotte, Susan Müller-Arnecke,
Constanze Doerr, Ann MacKay, Anke Tippmann, Henriëtte Bon-Gloor,
Carole Hallé,Perry Choe, Hong Bae Kim, Amy Kalina, Stephanie
Massaux, and Jacqueline Blumenthal for their valuable contributions to
the project and for their excellent and skilled conservation work on the
Gubbio studiolo. He also sincerely thanks Bruce Schwarz and Bob
Goldman of the Metropolitan Museum’s photo studio for their superb
photography and print work.1 At the time this paper was presented in spring 1995, the conservation treatment was in
progress; it has since been completed. The room opened for exhibition in May 1996.
2 AMetropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin on the Gubbio studiolo authored by Olga Raggio and
Antoine M. Wilmering was published in spring 1996 to celebrate the studiolo’s reinstallation.
Olga Raggio is the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Chair of the Department of European Sculpture
and Decorative Arts. A major book on the subject is being prepared by the same authors; it is
scheduled for publication by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1998.
3 Two paintings of the set, Music and Rhetoric,have been preserved at the National Gallery in
London. Two more paintings, Astronomy and Dialectic, were preserved up to World War II at
the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. The liberal arts were commonly, although not exclu-
sively, grouped as seven in the trivium and quadrivium. It is unknown whether any more paint-
ings of the group exist.
4 The Latin text had suffered losses over time and was restored on several occasions. In the vari-
ous descriptions by Dennistoun (1909), Laspeyres (1882), and Gabrielli (late sixteenth century),
published in Menichetti (1987), different losses and discrepancies are apparent.
5 The author is grateful to John Marincola, associate professor at Union College, Schenectady,
New York, for his suggestion for a missing section in the Latin inscription, as well as for his
suggestions for the translation of the text, which is partially based on the Codice Gabriellicited
by Menichetti (1987), Nachod (1943), and Laspeyres (1882). The translation is taken from
Raggio (1996).Notes
Acknowledgments
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