Maurizio Tempestini & Piero Porcinai Biography
Pietro Porcinai (1910-1986) was a renowned Italian landscape painter of the 20th century. During his prolific career, he has conceived and created precious landscape interventions, ranging from the garden to the urban park, from the industrial area to the tourist village, from the motorway to the agricultural area. He has created over 1100 extraordinary projects in Italy and in the rest of the world. Porcinai was born in 1910 in Settignano, on the Florentine hills, in a residence connected to Villa Gamberaia, where his father Martino worked as head gardener. Growing up in a stimulating family environment and immersed in the Florentine cultural context, populated by an international community of English-speaking artists and intellectuals, Porcinai developed his passion for the art of gardens. At that time, there was a renewal of the idea of the formal Italian garden (which had fallen out of favor in the early nineteenth century due to the fashion for the English romantic park), while the importance of the Renaissance and Baroque garden was reaffirmed. In 1938, at the age of just 28, Porcinai founded a studio in Florence together with Nello Baroni and Maurizio Tempestini, which soon transformed into a lively point of reference in the city's cultural life. This choice allowed him to come into contact with important entrepreneurial families who would become his future clients. Maurizio Tempestini, in turn, completed his studies at the Porta Romana Art Institute in Florence, obtaining a diploma in Industrial Decoration in 1929. In the years 1930-1932 he created some sketches for costumes for theatrical performances. He carried out an intense activity in the field of theatrical scenography, contributing to productions in Florence such as The exhibition of fashion at the Teatro della Pergola (1932) in collaboration with Guido Carreras, Il Gigli and his new comedy by L. Bonelli (1933) and L'osteria degli immortali by M. Massa (1933), The Heartless Princess (1933) and The story of the little soldier (1934), both by G. Venturini. His first known work was the furnishing of Casa Vallecchi in Florence (1931-1932), for which he also carried out the wall decorations. In the first half of the 1930s, he designed furnishing objects for Ceramiche Cantagalli in Florence and for the Cappellin and Seguso glassworks in Murano.
