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The Museum of Florence Stibbert


Anywhere in the world, museums, galleries, cultural centers, universities, private organizations, are trying for years to come and meet the fans Far Eastern scholars by providing libraries and collections, libraries and exhibitions, or organizing conferences, lectures, thematic exhibitions, important tools for understanding a world so distant from our own need that requires and contact with the artifacts and works of art, as well as written documents.

But few know that among the museums that deal with the conservation of Japanese materials, one of the most important in the world is in Italy.

Museum Stibbert

In a magical corner of Florence, between ancient buildings and tranquil gardens, stands the villa belonged to a man of great culture and aesthetics. Rich in precious works of art, is now a museum, which still bears the name of the old owner, Stibbert. The museum, which is managed by a foundation established by bequest of the same Stibbert, is best known experts on military history for the wonderful parade of mannequins in ancient armor, as well as fans of the history of costume, for the beautiful paintings dedicated to the costumes of all time. All collections, today consisting of about fifty thousand objects, as well as valuable furniture and architectural works, such as the Egyptian and Hellenistic temple, witness the work of an intelligent man out of the ordinary.

Life of Frederick Stibbert

Stibbert Frederick (1838-1906) was born in Florence to an English father and Italian mother. The family is composed of military, like his father, Colonel Coldsteam Guards, and his grandfather, Governor General of Bengal, which leaves a huge heirs property, which the young Stibbert will own at the age of twenty. Stibbert's father had arrived in Italy in the wake of anti-Napoleonic campaigns and had resided in Rome first, then to Florence, where he married a young woman in Tuscany. Frederick was educated in England, to Cambridge, but is still tied to Italy, point to fight with Garibaldi in the Trentino campaign of 1866, during which he received a silver medal. Financial expert, a great connoisseur of the art market, in fifty turns of Montughi family villa in a unique museum of type and abundance of findings. Without affecting its assets, only purchases made with the interests of armor, costumes, paintings, tapestries and artifacts of all kinds, always showing a refined taste and an enviable ability to choose. Hand in hand with the expansion of the collections also proceeded restructuring of the old villa, which was converted into a home best suited to display requirements: between 1879 and 1906, the year of death Stibbert, the best architects of Florence modify the original design and work in two blocks, north wing dedicated to a country residence, and south wing, designed as a museum. All collections are worth a careful visit preserved, but a the most interesting sections of the exhibition is devoted to the Japanese weapons.

rooms Japanese Japanese

The armory is housed in three main rooms, which originally would have retained medieval European material. But about 12 years (it was in 1880), the opening of Japan to the world, pursued tenaciously by the young Emperor Meiji Japanese had brought artifacts and weapons in Europe and America. Stibbert in London acquired a substantial core of weapons and armor: in this way about 90 armor, helmets, 200, 300, 600 swords and tsuba (guard saber) took the road of Tuscany, Florence offering a unique collection of quality, turnover and number of pieces, dating back almost all of the Momoyama and Edo period (1568 - 1868). Do not be surprised by the continuation of the old military technology in recent times since, when the Tokugawa family came to power and pacified the country, imposed by an edict that no foreigners were more set foot in Japan (he was only a small farm Dutch commercial Deshima), banned Christianity and prevent trade with the outside world. In 1853, Commodore Perry arrived with his ships in the country and faced a world still medieval, with the samurai who traveled with armor and swords, as they had done for centuries. Military technology, as known by the ruling class, had remained at the level of firearms rather primitive, not comparable with those of the West. This explains why the plates were built a long time, since more than half the 800.

Today the Japanese collection consists of about 1800 pieces, of which 95 are suits of armor, distributed in four rooms, 280 swords, pole arms about 30, 850, else the sword, about 200 helmets, then bows, arrows, , furnishings, paints and so on. The Japanese bows, about thirty, are all in storage, but a model, but unfortunately their conditions are not optimal. The Japanese bow, in particular, can not be reinforced too long, because it was built of bamboo and lacquer, otherwise be misaligned. These arcs of media power, not comparable to the famous English longbow, on the other hand, the power of these arches was not dependent from the gun, but the skill of the archer, who was learning a very challenging technique.

entrance halls are welcomed by some reconstructions of scenes with mannequins military of outstanding invoices: These are dummies made in the second half of last century in Japan, some glued paper (eg newspaper), with real hair. One of the mannequins, rare, was carried out in southern Japan, Kumamoto, from Matsumoto, one of the craftsmen working in this field. Each mannequin that he created reproduces in detail the human body, and parts (wood, plaster and colored) are interlocking assemblies without a single screw. Of these dummies there are only seven in the world and is believed to be produced to represent Japan in the World's Fairs. The sample was stored product to be a samurai few moments before firing the arrow and the effect of realism product is really impressive.

One of the things that strikes the visitor most is the great aesthetic beauty of these tools were designed to offend and defend. We must not forget that characteristic of the Japanese world of the past (as it is today, within certain limits) has always been the combination of functionality, beauty and formal ritual, also present in the life of Bush, samurai. A perfect example of a formal military function and aesthetic beauty is a set of armor, un'Aramaki of 500, made of lacquered steel blades, held together by silk fibers. The lacquer was used because it was the best way to protect the steel from the humid climate such as Japan, and was obtained by the dual effect of making the piece waterproof but also aesthetically pleasing. The silk ribbons are formed by hundreds of thousands of fibers that give the component a high level of toughness, so that it can withstand the sharp Japanese knives, which he slipped on the fibers or cut only a part.

After the introduction of firearms in the course of a few years, Japanese dealers completely changed the philosophy and began to make armor with steel plates.

In two cases are exhibited some beautiful else's sword, called tsuba. Else were the protection of the hands when you grab the sword, some of them are in plain steel, undecorated, while others are extremely elaborate. One reason for this difference is to be found in the new direction given to the policy of the country with the advent of the Tokugawa: Japan living with them nearly 250 years of peace, and the weapons are transformed from objects of art objects to fight, trained from soft materials, special alloys, such as shakudo composed copper, gold and other materials, which, thanks to a secret treaty, it assumes a very dark hue, with purple reflections. On this basis, the engravers affected or encrusted noble materials such as gold or silver, forming real squares, works of art that have nothing to envy to the best western gold.

Another window has a small collection of guns and armor from the battle of the second half of the 500.

Particularly rich is the collection of helmets, of wonderful workmanship, which constitute some of the most interesting pieces, and one of the swords. Japanese blades are absolutely the most perfectly crafted product that man has ever made, because it is handmade, from different grades of steel, bent and folded thousands of times. The value of these swords was enormous when you consider that the samurai were paid in bushels of rice (ko), and that bushels is about 2 tons of rice, a sword of high value, such as those made for major landowners, cost about 50 kb (one hundred tons of rice), enough to maintain long an entire village. For this reason, one of the greatest treasures kept in the Japanese family was the very sword that was handed down from generation generation.

conclude this brief visit by recalling that the Museum Stibbert not limited to the simple exposition of historical materials of great importance, but actively work on a cultural level, and through exchanges with other Italian and foreign institutions, both through research on own materials, as he explains, with regard to the Japanese section, Dr. Civita: "Since 1997, when she got the new director, there has been an upsurge of relations between Japan and the section of institutions and museums Japanese. This is because we are convinced that the Japanese section, in addition to the Islamic Museum Stibbert is one of the most important sections. Through contacts with some professors at the University of Tokyo, we immediately connected very fruitful and friendly relations with this university, the largest in Japan. The contacts were realized in a digital photographic survey of part of the Japanese section, curated by the University of Tokyo, and incorporated into their official website. This scan was first done at a European museum with a very advanced technology: the technical staff of the university came to Florence, and we scanned together some 600 pieces, with huge resolutions in three months' work. We believe that this collaboration has also contributed to the decision of the University of Tokyo to open its own section in Florence, the only one in Europe. Immediately after this collaboration, our museum has organized a series of conferences with teachers from the University of Tokyo on traditional themes. The last of these was a few weeks ago, the professor of ethics at the University of Tokyo, Professor Kakumyo Kanno, considered the greatest exponent of Japanese ethics, held a conference on Bushido, which involved a huge number of people. We also have contacts with the Tokugawa Museum, Nagoya, which led to the friendship of the undersigned staff and director of the Museum with the last descendant of the Tokugawa family, who runs a foundation which supports the preservation and study of Japanese culture in Nagoya. These are just some of the contacts, and we could cite many others. "

Japanese Armor

Interview with Dr. Civita, curator of the Japanese Section of the Museum Stibbert.

Roberto Tress: "In the collection we have seen a lot of armor from different eras. Could you describe a Japanese armor type, so to speak, into its constituent parts? "

Dr. Civita:" Yes, of course, although the type of armor is different. The museum's collection Stibbert, the Japanese section of the reinforcement, is almost complete except for the type Oyoroi of which only very few museums in Europe can boast of a few birds. We have all the other types. The Japanese type of armor is divided into two main periods: the period and the period Chusei Kinsei.

Stibbert The collection is almost entirely centered in the Kinsei period, in which they were designed more of eighteen different types of armor, all present in our museum. However, the difference in the type does not imply a difference in the various pieces. As in all other armor, you start from where we kabuto, corresponding to the helmet, which is of various kinds: it can be laminated, plate only reaffirmed, or, again, it can be steel, or boiled leather, coated steel, lacquered or boiled leather.

Soon after we menpo kabuto, also of different types. The most common is called menpo own, and had the function to protect the face up to the eyes, consisted primarily of two or three plates, depending on construction. One of these plates were removed and served as protection of the nose and upper cheekbones. Then there was another plate that wraps around the face, starting from the cheekbones up to the chin and at the bottom of the chin, which were then attacked a number of protections that served to protect the neck, called yodarekake.

is followed by two armored bracelets, called kote, these different types, which were worn in some cases before the bust, called doo or even attached to this with laces and grommets that are called kohaze. Although these bracelets armor, depending on the age and type, were made of different material, with a presence more or less, for example, steel mesh or steel plates, almost always all lacquered with the exception of a type called Odakote, because we are told, was preferred by Oda Nobunaga. Both the steel mesh bracelet were attached to a base fabric, and it could be too rich, or important in the most extreme cases, even in silk brocade, with different designs. The collection Stibbert are many types of fabrics and brocade, and silk, which would be a great object of study.

Proceeding again in the pieces of armor we doo, that is the armor, which consisted mainly of two parts, chest and back, and that is a lot of different types. Typically, before the introduction of firearms, chest and back were made of lacquered steel blades, held together by strips of silk. The strips were called Kozan, but, then, with the introduction of firearms, just to protect the vital parts, the preferred use of homogeneous steel plates, which were to be policarburate and hardened, and highly resistant, so much true that in certain models, and the museum has a couple of Stibbert armor of this type, were tested over them rifle shots, just to verify their resistance. The plates could be brown or even lacquered, could be engraved, embossed, have the ribs on the medial than the European model, they could even be copies, made in Japan, the European armor, or armor could also be modified according to the European style and Japanese taste.

Always proceeding in the description of the pieces of armor, after the doo, and there are scarselloni batticulo called in Japanese kusazuri, who were guards for the lower abdomen and upper thighs. They were obviously moving, just to help even the knight who rode on horseback, and could be made of steel plates or in Kozani. Then there was the Haida, a sort of apron divided in half, which just serves to protect the legs to the knee. Finally, there were the shin guards (suneate), and then the shoes, which could also be in steel plate. (1)



Notes (1) Article published in Arts of the East, 2006