L'alba della Scuola mosaicisti del Friuli: il mosaico della "fontana delle rane" alla prima Biennale di Monza (maggio-ottobre 1923), "Atti del XXV Colloquio dell'Associazione Italiana per lo Studio e la Conservazione del Mosaico", a cura di C. Cecalupo, M.E. Erba, Roma 2020, pp. 413-420. (original) (raw)

In 1923, the freshly launched School for Mosaicists in Spilimbergo was convened to participate in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts, set in Villa Reale, Monza. Under the supervision of Antonio Sussi, Head Director of the Institute, thirty-five 2nd year students manufactured the mosaic bottom of a magnificent Friulian fountain, which remembers Art Deco, made by architect Raimondo D'Aronco and sculptor Aurelio Mistruzzi. The vivid decoration presents aquatic contents (frogs, fish, butterflies, dragonflies) in a paludal vegetation, based on two cardboards painted by Enrico Miani and repeated in binary pace with light variations along the fountain circumference. The fountain was set in the Villa Reale honour courtyard beside the Triveneto section for the entire duration of the Exhibition, and was later bought by the Monza municipality and moved to Piazza Roma, a few footsteps far from the well-known Arengario. The Gold metal won by D'Aronco's project gained the School-at the time constantly searching for assets which could provide for its survival and promotion amongst the community-fame and new commissions.