Ulisse De Matteis (1827–1910) was a Florentine artist who worked primarily in stained glass. De Matteis created windows for many of the most important monuments in Tuscany and Liguria, including the Bargello, Florence Cathedral, Santa Croce, Santa Trinita, Siena Cathedral, Prato Cathedral, San Michele in Foro in Lucca, Genoa Cathedral, Mackenzie Castle, and San Francesco d'Albaro. De Matteis' work is also found in England, in the Church of St. Mary in Lastingham.
Biography
Birth and death dates Stained-glass artist Ulisse De Matteis was born in Florence, most likely in 1827. However, Angelo De Gubernatis, in his Dictionary of Living Italian Artists, reports that De Matteis was born in 1828,Angelo De Gubernatis, Dizionario degli artisti italiani vivendi [Dictionary of Living Italian Artists], Florence: Le Monnier, 1893. pp. 174–5. and this date has been repeated in numerous other biographies of the artist.Luigi Càllari, Storia dell'arte contemporanea italiana (History of Contemporary Italian Art). Rome: Loescher, 1909. p. 415.Felix Becker and Ulrich Thieme, Allgemeines Lexicon Der Bildenden Kunstler von Der Antike Bis Zur Gegenwart, Leipzig: E.A. Seeman, 1930. p. 254.Agostino Comanducci, Dizionario illustrato dei pittori e incisori italiani moderni, 1800-1900, Milan, Grafitalia, 1945, p. 223. The baptismal records in the archives of Florence cathedral do not contain a record of any De Matteis births in 1828. There are records in other years for two births, either of which could be the artist Ulisse De Matteis: Giuseppe Enrico Ulisse De Matteis born in 1827 or Enrico Ulisse De Matteis born in 1830. The record of Ulisse's death in the Ufficio Anagrafe (Registry office) in Florence lists his birth year as 1827, making it almost certain that he was born in 1827.The death record reads: "L'Ufficiale di Anagrafe Certifica che: il Sig. De Matteis Ulisse nato il 01-04-1827 a Firenze è stato iscritto nell'Anagrafe della popolazione residente di questo Comune dal Censimento 1871 fino al 08-02-1910 data di cancellazione per decesso." Ulisse's death in 1910 is recorded both in his obituary and in the Ufficio Anagrafe in Florence."Necrologio: Il pittore cav. Ulisse De Matteis," Corriere della Sera, Florence, 18 February 1910.
Early life and the founding of the workshop Early in his life, De Matteis worked in his father Clemente's engraving shop and had planned to continue in his father's profession. However, in 1848, he volunteered for the first Italian War of Independence, when Italians were fighting for liberation from the Hapsburg Austrian Empire, which had ruled Tuscany since the death of the last Medici Gian Gastone in 1737. During the war, De Matteis was imprisoned with the Florentine academic painter Stefano Ussi; apparently, it was Ussi who encouraged De Matteis to abandon engraving and pursue painting.Archivio Storico Comunale di Firenze (ASCF), Corda 23, inserto 603, "Toscani o aventi militato pella Toscana ritrovati dal sottoscritto in Innsbrück, Linza, Piaga." De Matteis appears in this list, along with two of his brothers and Stefano Ussi. See also Angelo De Gubernatis' entry on De Matteis in his Dizionario degli artisti italiani viventi (Florence, 1892), 174-75 and De Matteis' obituary, "Necrologio: Il pittore cav. Ulisse De Matteis." Corriere della Sera, 18 February 1910.
Upon his return to Florence in 1849, De Matteis attended figure drawing classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti and kept company at the Caffè Michelangelo in Via Larga (now Via Cavour), where he came to know the Macchiaioli painters, including Telemaco Signorini and Giovanni Fattori, both noted as his friends in his obituary."Necrologio: Il pittore cav. Ulisse De Matteis." Corriere della Sera, 18 February 1910. This group, described by art historian Albert Boime as "close to the radical working-class movement led by the master baker Giuseppe Dolfi in Florence," advocated for Tuscan independence and for the political unification of the Italian peninsula.Boime, Albert. The Art of the Macchia and the Risorgimento: Representing Culture and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. pp. 10-11. De Matteis' working-class background united him with several of the artists who frequented the Caffè Michelangelo, including Vincenzo Cabianca and Giovanni Fattori. The only known extant image of the artist was painted in 1857 by the Sienese artist Angelo Visconti during Visconti's stay in Florence. In the portrait, De Matteis wears a velvet cap similar to those worn by several figures in the entourage of the young king in Benozzo Gozzoli's 1459-60 Procession of the Magi in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici. While the collar is modern, the robe De Matteis wears resembles those worn by men in fifteenth-century Florentine portraits by artists such as Botticelli.
In the 1850s, the painter-restorer Gaetano Bianchi encouraged De Matteis to pursue stained glass; De Matteis then turned to Emilio Bechi, a prominent chemist at the Istituto Tecnico in Florence, for advice on how to make enameled pigments.De Matteis' collaboration with Bechi is noted in the firm's brochures: L'officina De Matteis per la costruzione e per il restauro di vetrate dipinte a smalto con ustione, secondo il sistema degli antichi maestri in Firenze, Florence: Salvadore Landi, 1906; and Officina De Matteis vetraria: per la costruzione e per il restauro di vetrate dipinte a smalto a gran fuoco, secondo il sistema degli antichi maestri, published in 1915. Copies of both are in the Archivio Storico Comunale di Firenze: the 1906 catalog is in: ACSF, Belle Arti 1/4, 1907, affare #16-7; the 1915 catalog is in: ASCF, Filza 5064, Palazzo della Posta.Guido Gori and Massimi Misiti, La biblioteca dell'Istituto Tecnico Toscano, Florence: Giuntina, 1986. pp. vii-ix (on the history of the Technical Institute). With capital and workshop space provided by the glass company of Carlo and Giuseppe FranciniThe Francini company was in existence at least by 1845. Records of a business transaction between the city and the Francini in 1845 are in the Archivio Storico Comunale di Firenze (ASCF), Filza 35, ins. 342, 1845. By 1870, The Francini company had a factory in San Giovanni Val d'Arno that employed over sixty people in making glass. See Antonio Pavan, "Della pittura su vetro e del laboratorio De Matteis," L'arte in Italia III (1870): 68-69. and the expertise of Natale Bruschi in cutting and leading glass, De Matteis founded his workshop in 1859 in the Via Guelfa in Florence. Throughout their collaboration, which lasted well into the 1880s, Bruschi fabricated the windows according to De Matteis' designs, and De Matteis then painted the glass with enameled pigments—a process that followed the practices of medieval stained-glass artists.
Family life and family business At the same time he was preparing to launch his stained-glass workshop, De Matteis married his first wife Elena Paoli. The couple had three children:All births are recorded in the Archivio dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence. https://duomo.firenze.it/it/archivio/fondi-archivistici. All deaths are recorded in the Ufficio Anagrafe (Registry office) in Florence. https://www.comune.firenze.it/anagrafe-e-stato-civile.
Ferdinando Vittorio Italiano (1859–60) Elettra Italia Isolina (1861–1932) grew up in her father's workshop and became an artist herself; her stained-glass windows and paintings were included in several exhibitions. Maria Zaira Elisabetta (b. 1863, died as a child)
In 1875, Ulisse married his second wife, the artist Veronica Vespini degli Innocenti (1854 Arezzo-1910 Florence).The marriage is recorded in the Atti di Matrimonio (Marriages) preserved in the Ufficio Anagrafe (Office of Registries), Anno (year) 1875, parte 1, vol. 2. atto n.592. "Il giorno dieci del mese di giugno dell'anno milleottocentosettantacinque è stato celebrato in FIRENZE il matrimonio fra: De Matteis, Ulisse nato in Firenze di anni 48, e Vespini Veronica nata in Arezzo di anni 20." ("On June 10, 1875 was celebrated in Florence the marriage between De Matteis, Ulisse born in Florence and 48 years old, and Vespini, Veronica, born in Arezzo and 20 years old.")Veronica's death is recorded in the Registry office in Florence: "L'Ufficiale di Anagrafe. Visti gli atti d'ufficio. Certifica che: il Sig. Vespini Veronica nato il 25-03-1854 a Arezzo è stato iscritto nell'Anagrafe della popolazione residente di questo Comune dal Censimento 1871 fino al 22-12-1910 data di cancellazione per decesso." Veronica was a practicing artist who exhibited her work, sometimes alongside Elettra, her stepdaughter, and Ulisse. Veronica and Ulisse had five children, four of whom survived into adulthood:
Eva Marzia Luisa (1876–1908)Eva's death is recorded in the Ufficio Anagrafe in Florence: "L'Ufficiale di Anagrafe. Visti gli atti d'ufficio. Certifica che: Sig. De Matteis Eva, nato il 21-05-1876 a Firenze, è stato iscritto nell'Anagrafe della popolazione residente di questo Comune dal Censimento 1876 fino al 09-05-1908 data di cancellazione per decesso." Maria Marzia Elettra (b. 1878, likely died as a child) Sergio Ettore (1882–1907) Rita Landa Giuseppina (b. 1887); married Ezio Giovannozzi (1882–1964) in 1909This marriage is noted in the margin of Rita's birth record in the Archivio dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence. Maria Berta Marzia (1898–1988).Quarant'anni di spettacolo in Italia attraverso l'opera di Maria De' Matteis: Provincia di Firenze, Firenze, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, 21 giugno-12 agosto. 1979. Firenze: Vallecchi. pp. 11-12.
By the late 1890s, the De Matteis workshop was a family enterprise. In a 1979 interview with Maria De Matteis, published in the catalog of an exhibition of her work as a costume designer, she reminisces: "Earlier, as a child, I worked with my father, a painter of stained-glass windows (pittore di vetrate)...And in Corso dei Tintori in Florence, there is, or at least I think it's still there, a stained-glass window that I painted. The family environment was formative for me. My father, like I said, was a painter, and my mother a miniature painter, she made miniature paintings even for the czars. All of my siblings painted, except my sister Rita, pianist and composer, who married the painter Ezio Giovannozzi." Maria De Matteis' memories are attested to in accounts from the time: in an 1896 account of artists in his book Florence Today (Firenze d'oggi), Ugo Matini remarks that all of the family, even the small children, work together on the company's numerous commissions.