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Kelley Helmstutler Di Dio, "Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern Italy: The Mechanics, Costs, Risks, and Rewards" (Brepols, 2025)
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- [00:02]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
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- [00:32]
Marshall Poe
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- [01:37]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio about her book titled Shipping Sculptures from Early Modern the Mechanics, Costs, Risks and Rewards, published by Breppels in 2025. Taking us to on a literal journey here of getting a fancy, often very large sculpture from where it was made in Italy all the way to whatever palace, church, public square it might have ended up in in Spain in the sort of period of like 1500 to 1750 ish. As one might imagine. That's a tricky proposition. Statues are obviously not kind of designed to be stuffed into a normal sized box. We're talking ships here, we're talk horse drawn carts, and yet we're also talking about quite a lot of statues that somehow successfully make this journey. And it turns out there are a lot of steps they have to go through. And that's in fact what we're going to be discussing. So, Kelly, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast to tell us about your research.
- [02:49]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Thanks so much for having me.
- [02:51]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Could you please start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write a book? I mean, why does, for example, investigating the logistics of moving statues around help us understand statues?
- [03:05]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Wonderful. Thank you. I started thinking about the mechanics around transportation of sculptures a long time ago. Indeed, this book really covers about 20 years of research that I've been doing in the archives. I started when I was a young grad student working on a particular sculptor that was living in Milan and working for the Spanish crown and sending work over there. And I traveled to Spain as part of I was living in Italy at the time and traveled to Spain to see one of the sculptures. And then as I was walking around Madrid, see, I was seeing all sorts of Italian sculptures around and thought, how did those get here? What would it take to take a large equestrian monument from Italy to Spain in the 16th or 17th century? Then I started doing research in the archives in Florence. I was a postdoc for three years with the Medici Archive project, and I was reading the Medici correspondence with the Court of Spain for three years, five days a week. And so much of what they were concerned about were these logistical issues that naturally involved a great deal of cost, but also had issues incredibly important and risky connections to diplomatic relations during this period. And that role of diplomacy was particularly interesting to me because sculpture is what they sent when the stakes were really high. And so I started digging into that more and socking away bits of archival documents as I was working on other projects and finally found the time to focused my energies on just really writing a history of these logistical issues that were primary on the minds of artists and patrons in this period, but have been relatively neglected in our art historical scholarship.
- [05:12]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
This is really interesting, especially as you said, because at the time these would have been like really fraught things to figure out, right? The stakes of getting it right were certainly high. So can you start to introduce us to some of the people involved in these journeys? For instance, what kinds of people and institutions wanted statues from Italy? I mean, why did they want statues? And if they were in Spain, why did they have to come from Italy?
- [05:38]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
So Spain is what I focused on. But I would say in the book, a lot of this information is translatable to some other European countries that Italy was sending sculptures to. But without a doubt, Spain is where the most went. In large part, that was because Spain was the superpower of the era. And there were so many new buildings that were being constructed, especially in the course of the 16th and early 17th centuries that required sculptures for their decoration either within churches. And in Spain in particular, there's a tradition of elaborate multifigured altarpieces with both sculpture and painting incorporated. Tombs required sculptures, and burial chapels were rather elaborately decorated in Spain as they were in Italy in this period. So those required sculptures. But new palaces with gardens and there was a real taste for garden sculpture and decorations of rooms within the palace also required sculpture. So this whole building machine that was happening in Spain in this period necessitated stately decor that would put it on par with the other European capitals. Italy was universally regarded as the place where really the best sculpture came from, especially Florence, but not just Florence, certainly Rome as well, Naples and Milan, and perhaps most of all from Genoa. Sculptures are made there and sent to Spain. So, you know, they, they wanted the sculptures from there, especially marble sculptures, but also bronze and of all scales, all subject matters. You know, there was just a real drive for this kind of collecting and decoration that, that really created this kind of machine that was necessary to get all of these thousands of sculptures moved from one country to the other in this period.
- [07:54]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the scale there. Right. We're not talking about one statue. It's a much more involved process than that. But if we maybe take one example statue is just to help us understand kind of what the steps were. Say we've got a person or a church in Spain that says, great, we want a statue from Italy. What do they do next? How do they figure out who in Italy they want to make it and how do they convince that person to do what they want?
- [08:22]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
So it would largely depend on who the person was. If they were connected to the court in any way. There was kind of a built in mechanism through diplomacy through ambassadors and agents of either the court and, or the agents and ambassadors working from these various princely cities in Italy. And so they would, you know, there was such a common pipeline between these systems that it was, you know, not unusual or difficult to, you know, strike up that apparatus and get it into motion. If people were working, you know, other people that didn't necessarily have those sorts of commissions, possibilities at hand, built through diplomatic channels. It was absolutely important in this period, as I describe in the book, these very tight knit communities of Genoese in particular, that were living across Spain and helped make those connections with artists and other shipping companies that were active in Italy to help facilitate this transfer of funds and Communicate well, the exact. Exactly what the patron was looking for to the artist. So there was a real art market that was well established to help transfer information as well as sculptures during this period for all sorts of patrons.
- [10:00]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay, that definitely makes sense. Obviously, it's not gonna be down to one person. So having communities there that can kind of facilitate this definitely seems a necessary element of this. But, of course, even if sort of someone knows someone who knows someone and can kind of start to make these conversations happen, these are pretty expensive things. I think we'll probably get into costs in a moment, but the size and scale of some of this means that you're not just going to sort of get go, hey, buddy, will you do this for me? Right. We're probably talking about contracts. What did they look like at this point? What was kind of a standard contract in terms of what was included, what sort of didn't need to be in a contract? What did that look like?
- [10:40]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Absolutely. So contracts vary quite a great deal. But in general, artists are contracted, usually through an agent of the patron. And specifications are made around style, content, materials, and deadlines. And so the artist is usually held responsible in these contracts for everything from getting the materials in place to the manufacturer of the object, the packing of the object, and then getting it to its first destination port, whether by land or by sea. So artists are really comprehensively quite responsible for a lot of these aspects, and they are considering those aspects as they are making the actual sculpture. Because depending on what route the object was gonna have to take, they would, I argue, anyway, design these sculptures so that they would be as durable as possible, because there was so much risk involved in sending them of breakage if they were made out of stone in particular. But all sorts of damage, of course, could happen on these wild routes that these sculptures had to take to get to their final destination point. So a lot of that kind of detail is built into these contracts. And it's also true that there is a growth of the insurance market during this period. And patrons would often include a clause in the contract, if the ship went down and the sculpture was lost, that the artist would be responsible for remaking it at a certain set price, either for the original cost of the object or some other lesser sum or more for that matter. Insurance agents start getting involved in taking in a certain amount of premium so that they can provide some financial assistance if those sculptures get lost or damaged along the way. And so patrons are more and more engaging in the use of insurance to help protect their investments in these sculptures, as well as.
- [13:09]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
That definitely sounds like a number of different players going on, and therefore kind of multiple places where different parties might want different things. So what aspects of contracts tended to be the hardest to negotiate or hardest to enforce? Were there, for example, regulations around any of this?
- [13:27]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
So I think probably the most challenging bit of all of this is the communication around the style and the intention of the patron for what the final thing should look like, because there were intermediaries that could end up playing a sort of telephone game that wouldn't always come out so well on the other end. And so drawings are being sent repeatedly so that everyone can agree on what the final object will look like. And so there's a lot of back and forth that happens with drawings with written descriptions, with local artists that are close to the patron, that are communicating again in writing, or by drawing what the patron is articulating that they want, and then sending those to the artist on site in Italy for them to translate. But certainly there are moments when the patron is, you know, not thrilled with what the final outcome of the sculpture looks like. They usually keep them because they've invested so much money in them, but maybe they don't display them where they had hoped to because they aren't quite as in love with the final product as they had hoped to be. So that's probably the most challenging bit in it. There are some. There's some strict oversight, especially in Spain around. Especially the Spain of, say, Philip iii, around what kinds of objects can be brought into the country. And so there's quite a lot of regulation around that, especially if the sculptures are diplomatic gifts. There's a lot of concern about corruption. And so largely, religious objects are what are sent more than anything during the time of Philip iii, that changes dramatically with his son, Philip iv. And the kinds of things that are collected by more than just the inner circle of the king during that period grow and vary a great deal. But during the time of Philip iii, mostly religious subject matter is brought over because there was a. That religious sculptures could serve an important function of piety, whereas other sorts of subject matters maybe were evidence of people just collecting things because they wanted them, and maybe it was a gift because there were other favors that were hoped for in return. And religious sculptures didn't have that same kind of level of suspicion. So there was certainly regulation in that customs agents opened boxes as they arrived at the border to check what was inside and make sure that it aligned with what was written on the box, and they didn't always. And secret panels in boxes with hidden objects or paintings in particular were sometimes found, and that, you know, caused fines and penalties on both the shipper and on the person that was meant to be the recipient of the case, the box. So there's a lot of oversight in terms of customs controls.
- [17:02]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
I can just imagine the customs official going, this is an oddly shaped box. Let's see what's in there. And then you open up the crate and sort of an arm emerges, and it's. I can imagine all sorts of conversations happening. And obviously, all of these steps that you're describing for us take time, take money. Who's paying for all of this? All the way from the material needed to make the sculpture in the first place to the sort of paperwork with customs officials are inspecting and kind of everything in between. How much does this all cost and who's paying for it?
- [17:35]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
In the case of diplomatic gifts, it is generally the sender that pays for every step along the way. I think a great example to illustrate both the complications of all of this and who ends up paying for all of it are the equestrian monuments that Pietro Taca does both for Philip iii, and he later does one of Philip iv and then also one he did for the French king, Henry iv. In the case of the Philip III commission, Pietro Tacca is asked by the Medici grand duke to acquire the materials and make this sculpture. At the time, he's working with his mentor, Giambolog, the most famous sculptor of all of Europe, in that moment. And Giambologni dies. And so Pietro Tacca ends up fulfilling the commission on his own. But the Medici are quite hopeful that the king will pay for the transport of the sculpture. And so it sits even after it's completed, and it takes its journey from Florence to Livorno. It is quite a complicated journey in that end, but the Medici understand that they need to pay for that portion. But they're hopeful that once it gets to Livorno, the king will step in, or the king's favorite, the Duke of Lerma, will agree to pay for the passport of the sculpture. So all of the shipping duties, the related shipping cost, and make sure that it gets safe passage all the way to Madrid, that doesn't happen. And so there are several years of negotiations that take place as the Medici continually hope that they will get coverage on this. And ultimately, they give up. They send the sculpture. They then hope that from where it lands at the Port of Spain, which was Alicante, they hope that it will get coverage of costs from Alicante up to the court in Madrid. And so it sits in Alicante for over a year, waiting for those costs to be covered, for the labor to be organized. That doesn't happen either. So the Medici end up paying for the full ride all the way to Madrid. So sometimes there's negotiations that are happening even as the object is in transit. The Medici obviously have spent a ton of money just on the materials in the making of the sculpture, but the cost of shipping it to Spain far, far exceed what the material and making cost are. So since it's a gift, the Medici hope that the king will be agreeable to cover those costs. But ultimately, it doesn't quite go that way. In the case of the Henry IV sculpture, things are even more complicated. But initially, the commission was that Maria de Medici was going to pay for the sculpture to be made. Or, you know, she and her husband, for that matter, were going to pay for the sculpture to be made. Henry IV dies. Marie de Medici has heard through the grapevine that the one for Philip III is being done on the Medici dime. And so she asked for the same to happen with her sculpture of her husband. And so ultimately, the Medici have to kind of suck it up and pay for that one as well. It gets to the port and lots of negotiations happen just to get it on the right kind of ship to be seaworthy to take this heavy load up to Marseilles. It sinks along the way, and ultimately Maria de Medici sends the funds necessary to help fish it out and get it back on board on a new ship and get it safe passage all the way to Paris. So it depends a great deal, but it always ends up at least partially on the shoulders of the gift giver for these objects to be sent.
- [22:13]
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- [23:36]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay, yeah, definitely a lot of pieces there. And that example particular really raises the question you mentioned briefly earlier about kind of how the statue gets from Italy to Spain. Obviously, one of the disadvantages of sending it by sea is that the ship can sink. That's obviously a problem, but it's not as simple as saying, therefore land was better, right? What are the pros and cons of the different options?
- [24:00]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
So land transport generally was the safest. Even with all of the great advances that happen with shipbuilding in the course of the 17th century, land passage still was safer. Lots of new routes had been made, you know, streets made wider and transport made easier even over the Alps in this period to help facilitate this movement. But, you know, there were risks on both ends. So if you sent it by sea, the disadvantage was, as you mentioned, that the ship could sink. And that was obviously a problem. There were very rough waters, especially in certain times of the year between Italy and Spain. There was also a really high risk of pirates. So that, you know, we have some documented examples of pirates ransacking ships and taking the sculptures with them or throwing them overboard. So that certainly was another problem. But sometimes ships were the only way, depending on both the bulk and the weight of the sculpture. Sometimes things were just too big and heavy to do by land and required shipping instead. Shipping transport tended to be faster and of course generally required a little less labor investment than land transport did. But, you know, the cost would be outweighed sometimes by either the insurance costs. So shipping by land was a lot cheaper than shipping by sea. But also there was a difference in risk in that shipping by land could entail more risk of damage if the sculpture was made of stone, in particular, just because of the roughness of the routes that they had to go over. But also there were always river routes that were taken at some point. So you're unloading and loading and unloading and then loading again on, you know, oxen pulled carts. So there was just so much more handling that had to happen if it was taken by land. So there are sort of pros and Cons with both. But usually weight ends up being the deciding factor. Or like, the quantity of sculpture that sent in one time tends to be the deciding factor on which route was the best.
- [26:36]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Those are definitely key considerations when even just commissioning this in the first place, of, like, how are we going to get it home once it's made? And if one did choose, for example, the sea route, could you just go to any port and say, hey, stick this on a ship?
- [26:54]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Certainly not. So there were certain ports that were much more highly developed and equipped in this period that allowed for this kind of large object weight distribution and movement than other ports. So there's a great deal of investment that happened so that new machinery was made available at these key shipping ports. And that was an important consideration. You know, pulley systems in particular were, you know, created and made available for a fee, of course, to use at certain ports. There were particular places where storage was available, like in Genoa, that made that use of that port more attractive. So, like, secure storage if necessary to wait out storms and so forth. There were also natural challenges for some ports more than others, like in Savona, the silting would build up so much. The silt near the shoreline would build up so much that it created a lot of risk involved because sometimes the ships would end up grounding there instead of carrying on their way as they needed to. So, you know, there were incredible investments that had to be made. But, you know, the ports that become the most important during this period are certainly the ports of Naples, Civitavecchia, near Rome, Livorno for Tuscan shipments, and Genoa. But certainly Genoa most of all, it was just a powerhouse place for shipbuilding, transport. It had a very organized labor system with specialized laborers who knew how to manage even the most delicate and complicated of shipments. So Genoa tends to be the number one place where things are sent from. And obviously, for sculpture, again, Genoa is the one closest to the quarries in Carrara. And so for the acquisition of that prec. Marble that a lot of Spanish and other people around Europe wanted their hands on for building materials and for sculptures, Genoa was the most immediate place that those materials could be accessed. So Genoa does particularly well during this period for sculpture transport, but really for transport of anything during this period.
- [29:54]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, clearly they figured out how to do this properly. One piece of this process I really want to ask about, which I have to admit is the very first thing I thought about when I came across this book, which is, how do the statues get on and off the ships? That sounds like a very tricky thing to manage. Even today. And we've got all sorts of cranes that definitely were not around in Genoa in 1600. So can you answer that question for me, please?
- [30:21]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
I hope so. That was the thing that was most interesting to me. I mean, it was really the equestrian monument of Philip III that I saw in the Plaza Mayor in Madrid and thought, how in the world did they get this thing here? I had just arrived to Madrid and had issues just packing my suitcase adequately enough to get it there with all of my things I wanted to take without them getting broken. And I just could not wrap my head around how the sculpture, sculpture had gotten there. And in part what I figured out is that, you know, when you're looking at something as massive as that equestrian monument was, you know, a lot of them were sent in pieces and then assembled on site when they got there. So often skilled sculptors are sent along with sculptures like that so that they could be assembled properly and put up on the pedestal. But it also required specialized packing. So I really got into the weeds about, you know, where did they, who made those boxes, where did they get the materials to make the boxes that things were sent and what were the packing materials like? And one particular example was so fun to me. You know, as they are sending these massive, beautiful gilded bronze sculptures from the shop of Pompeo Leoni in Milan to the Escorial where they would become part of the retable in the high altar chapel of the Escorial. Pompeo sends his assistants to knock on neighbors doors to ask for any, you know, textiles of any sort, rags, clothes, whatever they had to pack around these precious sculptures so that they would be insulated as they made their way in these specially made boxes that were usually lined with wax so that they would be waterproof just in case, to protect them from any sort of moisture. But certainly if they went overboard, but they'd also have these packing materials around them to keep, keep them, you know, safe from bumps along the way, lest there be nicks or scratches or anything else that could happen to these bronzes. So there's a great deal of thought that's happening in just what the packing of these things look like. Then they would be brought to be weighed and you know, once they're all packed up so they'd be weighed so that they could make sure they had adequate carts and livestock like oxen to help pull the carts that were going to be carrying these sculptures in cases over land. They would have to find boats that were adequate in weight to make that happen. Usually flat bottom boats on rivers so that they could manage the weight and not be so easy to sync with the weight. They would distribute the weight a little better. And then once they got to their point of destination, you know, they had to be carefully unpacked. And instructions were usually sent along to help explain what needed to be done to get them set up as they needed to be. Or as I said, sculptors would be sent directly from the artist shop to do the work on site with their knowledge and get those set up. But that just added to the cost of everything, because they had to pay for not only all this additional shipping needs, but also the sculptors had to be paid. The sculptor's assistants that were sent along the way had to be clothed and fed and kept in hostels along the way. And so it really does have a lot of cost involved, but it also has a real ripple effect on the growth and prosperity of the towns along these shipping routes, because they had to provide for all of these people that were moving these sculptures and other things during these, you know, shipping periods that happen pretty seasonally along the way. I hope that answers your questions. It's complicated and very costly.
- [34:57]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
I mean, very clearly. Both of those things are quite true. And also clear that my flippant comment earlier that the customs official would sort of pry off the crate and sort of poke around is definitely not what's happening, given how carefully these are being packaged, if actually they would.
- [35:17]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
And the sculptor had to consider this as well, actually. So they. They would pop open the crates and. And check what was inside, and then they would have to get. Sometimes the. The customs officials were quite using brute force to open these crates, and sometimes new crates had to be made on site at the customs point or they would have to be repaired in some way. So additional supplies were often sent so that repairs like that could be made. Because they absolutely opened those crates to double check what they contained.
- [35:54]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
And when we say double check, what were they checking against? Did these statues have passports?
- [36:00]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
So they did have passports. And they. The contents of what was supposed to be in the boxes was written on the exterior of the boxes. Often they would be sent with a letter of passage, a kind of passport that would describe what they were and who they were intended for, and it would also describe who was responsible for paying the import taxes and fees along the way. So they did come with documentation that had to be checked. There was a concern about contamination that could happen. There was a belief that the plague could be sent through objects, through materials like, say, the cloth that was used as packing material could be carrying plague germs with them. And the plague was still very much a threat in this period and continued to be. So there was some concern for that. But they were also looking just for contraband that could be sent and contraband of any sort, but especially things that had not been declared that needed to have taxes paid on them. There were, you know, shipments that had, as I mentioned earlier, false doors in the cases and other objects would be found either, you know, food items that were being sent, plants were being sent, but also other kinds of objects like glassware, paintings, reliquaries, precious stones, all sorts of objects could be sent. And if taxes weren't levied on those, that was a loss of income income at these different custom sites. So they they very carefully controlled what was coming in and out.
- [38:04]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
That is definitely interesting to understand and kind of imagine given how we use passports today.
- [38:11]
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- [38:42]
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- [39:11]
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- [39:29]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
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- [39:41]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Now you've obviously given us a lot of examples of just how tricky this whole thing is, was all the different steps involved. But I wonder if we can make it even a little bit more complicated because there was a particular type of statue you discussed in the book that took all of these things you've told us about and then Kind of seemed up a level in terms of difficulty. Why were equestrian statues that were meant to go in, like public parks or public squares, why were they especially challenging for all the different steps you've just told us about?
- [40:12]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Well, they are very big and heavy, in short. But I think one thing that's important is the enormous cost and labor that was necessary for equestrian monuments was nevertheless worth it to the Medici to invest in and send. And it is always in these sort of key moments of peril, or at least perceived peril for the Medici's well being and standing with the Spanish court or with France that these equestrian monuments are sent. But they're so complicated because, you know, equestrian monuments are usually bronze, especially during this period. They are meant to evoke the longstanding Roman imperial concept of the equestrian monument, which patrons knew well and appreciated what the implications of that in terms of representations of power were. But they were very difficult. It was hard to get an even cast on such a large bronze sculpture. It required so much material of bronze, of course, but, you know, all of the other sub materials that go into making a cast sculpture were necessary to acquire from the wax to the emery that was used in the chasing of some of these sculptures to get the final details just as they wished. There was a real concern about the accuracy of the portrait. And so we have Velazquez and Rubens that make portraits of kings that are sent so that the likenesses can be controlled. So there's cost involved and complications of that as well. But in terms of the shipping, it really is just because of the sheer weight and scale of these figures. They would be sent in pieces usually. And that was also quite complicated when they got on site. And you know, in the case of one of the monuments that goes to Spain, they arrived evidently without instructions about how to put it back together. And the sculptor's assistant that had traveled with it really didn't know what he was doing. So things got terribly delayed and that just. Just added more expense and frustration. So, you know, they were quite difficult to get from one place to the other. There were always concerns about, you know, they would have to go by sea just because of the sheer scale and weight of them. But, you know, what if they sank? What if that investment was lost to pirates or other losses that could happen to the ships. And then, you know, just the sheer labor involved in moving them overland once they got to the Spanish port was immense. There is no easy shipping route to the port in Madrid. It is necessarily by land. There was not organized river transport that made this A little bit easier. Weather conditions change quite quickly and could create disasters of flooded streets or mountain crossings that became difficult all of a sudden and had to be dealt with. It was enormously risky to get things moved even once they arrived at the port in Spain. So all of it was quite complicated. But there was also a lot of excitement about it, I mean, from the gift giver's perspective, because they really did see these sculptures as being a way to solidify relationships, you know, because of the sheer investment of all of it, but also, you know, on the part of the recipient. They were really meant to be seen as incredibly generous gifts that would be used in public spaces and really communicate effectively the power and authority of, in this case, the Spanish king. It didn't always work out that way. Sometimes the sculptures weren't received as well as the Medici had hoped. In the case of the sculpture of Philip iii, after this long and arduous journey, it finally arrives in Madrid and is set up in the gardens of one of the country houses of the king, instead of being right in the middle of the city, as the Italians had imagined it would be, because that was generally the Italian practice for such monuments. But Philip wasn't quite comfortable with that kind of, you know, outward display of his image in particular. And so it, it stayed in the gardens for a long time. And as I mentioned, it took a long time to even get it assembled. Well, and one of the most charming stories that I read about as the sculpture is sitting in the gardens of the Casa de Campo is that the gardener was making a little extra money on the side by having people pay to be able to see through the cracks in the cases, just to get a glimpse of what this exciting new sculpture was that had arrived until he got caught making these extra moneys. So there was a lot of excitement, but it was not smooth sailing. Forgive the pun, but it was quite complicated, but worth it nevertheless. For the Medici, even if the sculpture didn't end up where they had hoped for, it did have the impact that they had wanted, which in this case in particular was just for the recognition of their title of Grand Duke of Tuscany to be reinforced and recognized. So it was worth it to them.
- [47:01]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, it certainly puts a different complexion wandering around the streets of cities and going, oh, why? How did that statue get there? It's like, oh, okay. Actually, maybe it was really, really complicated, especially when we look at, in some places, kind of so many general looking dudes on horses. You know, having understanding this backstory definitely provides a whole extra context to it. One Thing, though, I do want to make sure we don't kind of fall into the trap of is obviously, the specific examples you've given us are really evocative. I mean, that one, obviously with the Medici specifically, but you do cover in the book kind of it's not just about one statue. It covers a solid over 200 years of history. So perhaps as a final question, zooming out a bit from any one of the statues you discuss, is there anything we should understand over the course of this period that changes? Like, does any of this get easier over time?
- [47:55]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Not really. I mean, I, you know, there's, you know, some of it certainly gets easier once modern machinery is invented, but it certainly doesn't completely resolve the complications of moving heavy sculptures like that. I mean, Even in the 21st century, it is quite a complicated enterprise to move sculptures around. Certainly internationally, but even nationally, it can be hard to move sculptures. Friends of mine who know that I am a little bit obsessed with this material regularly send me videos, even in their museums of how complicated it is to move a sculpture. Even within, say, the National Gallery or the Art Institute of Chicago. Like, it's complicated to move sculpture. It certainly is part of the reason why sculpture exhibitions happen rather infrequently, because it's very hard and they're just so at risk of damage. And that's certainly part of what impacts that. But also, there are a few other issues that have had really important ripple effects just on the understanding of the history of sculpture. And in this period, first and foremost, really, as we zoom out from the book, so much of the sculpture that I talk about in the book isn't around anymore. And despite the incredible effort that it took to get the sculpture there, sculpture is always at risk, as is all art, and especially in the, you know, Napoleonic period, a lot of sculpture in Spain was destroyed and, you know, during the time of Franco and the Civil War. I mean, sculptures often are the object of ire and subsequently destruction precisely because of the kind of power that they can represent. Say again, in the case of an equestrian monument. So, you know, a lot of the sculpture that I talk about isn't there to look at anymore. And that has affected what we believe to be the role of sculpture during this period. And my hope is that this project and a previous project that I worked on with another scholar, Giotto Coppell, around sculpture collecting in Spain in this period is to bring back to light how the importance of sculpture in this period was immense and had so much political and diplomatic significance behind its collecting and Display. So painting has long kind of overshadowed sculpture in art historical studies during this period, and especially in Spain. And it's really much more about the impacts of the destruction of sculpture than it is about the realities of the taste for sculpture during this period. And just sculpture was such an important economic driver, as I mentioned, for the labor market, for the economies of the towns that these shipments pass through, that there's just so much more to consider about the impact of sculpture on these, you know, bird's eye view kind of realities of the period.
- [51:54]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I mean, this discussion has definitely demonstrated how many things there are to understand, just looking through this lens of. Of how do you get the sculpture to the place. Right. That sounds like a really simple question. And yet there's so many, so many pieces to it, as you've demonstrated here, and obviously in more detail in the book. Can I ask what you might be working on now that this book is done? Is this something you're continuing to investigate? Are you going to other topics? What might be on the horizon for you?
- [52:21]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Well, I will be for my whole life a sculpture nerd. So I am definitely still firmly rooted in sculpture. Sculpture, and specifically the sculpture between Italy and Spain. So that's not going anywhere. As I was working on this book, I delved more deeply into one particular area, and that is what I am currently writing a new book on. So the sculpture shipments that were sent from Milan to the Escorial that were made in part in Milan, I should say. So the large figurative sculptures of the Retable were made in Milan, but then the kneeling sculptures that are on the side niches of the high altar chapel in the Escorial were made in Madrid. But as I was digging into this material, I was. I came across important references to Pompeo Leone's notebooks and to the notebooks of the agent that was overseeing the project. And I have now completely transcribed the over a thousand pages of these documents that detail an incredible fastidiousness that people that worked each week on the project, how much they were paid, where the materials were coming from, how much they all cost, how Pompeo organized his workshop, how the shipping bits happened, and then, sorry, this afterlife of what happens once the decision is made to make the rest of the sculptural complex in Madrid. So I am very excited to be continuing on this path of looking at the Leoni, a family that I've always been very interested in, but especially looking at these challenges, both practical and otherwise, of making sculptures from one country to another and Italian communities of artists. That are living in other countries and how those networks function to make them so successful in these new places that they find themselves in. So it's a very exciting project that I am head over heels about and working on a great deal with great speed and interest.
- [55:03]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, I'm so pleased you're excited about your next project. That's always such a fun thing to hear about. And of course, any listeners who want to learn more about sculptures can read the book we've been discussing titled Shipping Skills, Sculptures from Early Modern Italy, the Mechanics, Costs, Risks and Rewards, published by Breckles in 2025. Kelly, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [55:24]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Thank you so much. I enjoyed it.
- [55:40]
Marshall Poe
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- [55:56]
Dr. Kelly Helmstutler Didio
Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [55:59]
Marshall Poe
Cut the camera. They see us.
- [56:00]
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