Walking along Via M. Bufalini, before reaching the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, at number 6, there is the building which is the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio of Florence. At the entrance of the Administrative Department there are two glass doors in wrought iron, decorated by modular plates of opalescent glass. The bigger window portrays a lunette at the top, while in the centre there is a medallion in which the bipartisan shield, figuring the Baptist and the lily of Florence, is drawn.
The most external window, the panels of which are spaced out in a frieze, is formed by two doors representing a valve in a shell inside a medallion and surrounding it there is a pair of dolphins facing each other. Subsequently, because of complex events, the smaller window has maintained the original characteristics, while the other has been subjected to substantial modifications. The windows were a remarkable accomplishment of Galileo Chini and Tito Chini in 1926, when the two artists gave their services in various decorative interventions in the Cassa di Risparmio building.
The two windows re-propose some of the most typical and recurrent motifs in the works of Galileo Chini, like the stylized dolphins which we may find present in other windows, as well as in the production of the ceramics, and like the phyto-morphological tangles which are to be found in some frescos and in the stained-glass windows for the Roma Hotel in Florence.
Itinerario Liberty - Planning and Realization - Stefano Pelosi - www.stefanopelosi.it