The chapel was realized, together with the kindergarten destined for the children of the hamlets of Salaiole, Gricignano, Poggiolo of which it is part, by the duchess Maria Grazioli Lante della Rovere, whose original family, that of the Lavaggi marquesses, possessed property in the area. The duchessewanted to dedicate the small building to the memory of her two sons killed during the First World War, Vincenzo and Riccardo, whose saints, having the same names, are the titular saints of the chapel. Completed in 1923, from drawings by the village surveyor, Carlo Maggi, who obtained it from the old granary, the chapel was completely decorated by the San Lorenzo Furnaces with ideation, design and management of the young, but artistically valid, Tito Chini, whose name may be read together with the date 1923, in two places of the environment.
On the outside, the small building presents a polychromatic façade preceded by an open gallery supported by brick balusters. On the left side, a flight of steps climbs upwards, with a banister of small columns fitted with capitals of water leaves in stoneware, many of which are seriously damaged. In the upper part of the façade, a circular eye framed by a decoration with minute polychromatic tiles opens up, in which the presence of the metallic gloss creates efficient luminous effects. The small atrium has an interesting floor in tiles, some of which, arranged in rows, show decorations with small geometrical motifs, in accordance with a decorative typology very dear to Galileo Chini. The walls of the atrium have monochromatic graffito decorations, whilst on the right of the front door, provided with an architrave, held up by imitation medieval brackets, one may read the signature of Tito Chini and the date 1923.
The inside of the chapel, a small hall with a rectangular layout, impresses above all for the completeness of the decoration and the furnishings, which make them one of the best-preserved ensembles integrally due to Chini manufacturing, While the ideation of the decorative complex, the direction of the work and the realization of numerous components are certainly directly due to Tito, it also happened, as was the practice of the Furnaces that , where possible, pieces already in production for some time were used, of which the ideation could have been even years previously, and belonging to Galileo.
The splendid ceramic floor is composed of different types of tiles from the Furnaces. Some regard the decorative typology with small geometrical motifs of Klimtian taste, as we have already seen in the atrium, while others regard tiles with floral decorations of very fine, elegant and accurate manufacture, which belong to the purer Liberty taste and in which it is possible to recognize Galileo Chini’s hand. On the walls of the entrance there are two elegant imitation Renaissance wall-stoups, very similar to those belonging to the oratory of Misericordia in Borgo San Lorenzo. The walls of the chapel are painted, at the bottom, with false drapes, referring to a medieval habit, and also used, precisely at that time, in the hall leading to the spiral staircase of Villa Pecori Giraldi. Above the painted drapes there are the words of the Ave Maria. On the right wall, right next to the charming small door leading to the vestry, one may read the signature of Tito Chini and the date 1923 once again. The walls are completed by paintings portraying monochrome vegetable friezes, cherubs and, at the centre of the rear wall, a circular panel with the Dove of the Holy Spirit and the Eucharistic symbols of grapes and ears of corn. The ceiling bears a painted decoration of fake coffers, while the small altar is supported by four small columns with capitals similar to those of the external flight of steps.
The element of greatest visual fascination of the whole chapel is probably composed of the splendid series of stained-glass windows which, despite some missing parts, is in a good state of preservation. The eye of the façade depicts a pelican which wounds itself to nourish its young, a medieval symbol of the Eucharist and of the sacrifice of Christ, a work of great effect having a structural solidness which directly recalls the hand of Tito Chini. On the two side walls there are four stained-glass windows decorated with the characteristic geometrical motifs, peculiar to the activities of the Furnaces and linked to the art of Gustav Klimt. On each window there is a tondo figuring a symbol of the Evangelists. These tondos, characterized by an aggressive, powerful graphic system, appear to be unambiguously the work of Tito Chini.
On the rear wall, behind the altar, a large stained-glass window is to be found, portraying the Madonna between the Saints Vincenzo Ferreri and Riccardo. The real visual fulcrum of the environment is the stained-glass window representing the saints to which the chapel is dedicated on each side of the Virgin wearing a long white dress and with her arms down and slightly outstretched forward. The style of the window is approachable to some parts of the works of the Ossuary of the fallen on the Pasubio, completed by Tito Chini in 1926, and its decoration represents the technical capacity of the Furnaces at its highest level, also reached in the field of glass-making, and the versatility in assimilating and amalgamating, in perfect equilibrium, many cultural components of modern art with that of Middle Ages and the Renaissance. To the latter, for example, the splendid hanging capitals of exquisite brunelleschian flavour are inspired. Thus a remarkable synthesis capable of adapting its own characteristics to the religious destination of the manufacture is brought about. On the walls one may admire the splendid circular panels of the Via Crucis, illustrated in monochromatic blue, inside a circular classicizing frame, in a summarized style, solemnly and dramatically neo-Renaissance, owing to Tolleri and Calori, effected for the Furnaces.
Finally, the original wooden decoration of the small environments are worthy of note, realized from designs of Tito Chini, by the village carpentry Bini, in the workshop of which, in Viale della Repubblica, numerous furnishings were produced for the Furnaces. On the outside, on the South wall of the kindergarten, one may see a niche with the bottom in green and black tiles, and a relief in white ceramics with the Madonna with Child, certainly to be assigned to the Furnaces again around 1923, a conscious homage to the great artistic tradition of the workshop, to which the green bottom gives a vivacious, modern chromatic note.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it
