TRENDING
September 25, 2019
In the annals of European art history, few events are as delightfully bizarre as the so called Invisible Paint Incident of Florence in the late 17th century. This curious episode, which appears in scattered references in both Florentine archives and the diary of painter Alessandro Rinaldi, has fascinated historians for centuries not least because the surviving evidence consists largely of rumor, secondhand accounts, and one nearly illegible contract.
The Inventor Giacomo Ferranti
Giacomo Ferranti, an eccentric painter and inventor, is said to have been a minor member of the Florentine Guild of Painters. Little is known about Ferranti’s life before 1697, but in that year he presented what he called pittura invisibile invisible paint to the city council of Florence. According to a surviving fragment of his proposal, Ferranti claimed the paint could “render surfaces unseen to the eye while retaining all their substance.”
Ferranti insisted this invention had profound applications. “A city may cloak its walls in beauty unseen,” he wrote, “and men may wander in silence past wonders without distraction.” He suggested it could be used to “beautify buildings without defacing their form” and even proposed painting entire public squares to grant citizens the “gift of private contemplation.”
The Demonstration
Accounts of Ferranti’s demonstration are contradictory, but most agree that in the summer of 1697 he invited the city council and a gathering of notable artists to Piazza della Signoria. Ferranti reportedly painted an entire section of wall with his invisible paint. Witnesses claim that once dry, the wall appeared completely unchanged yet Ferranti asserted that a subtle layer of magic now cloaked the stonework.
Curiously, according to council records, Ferranti’s demonstration was accompanied by “laughter, confusion, and an inexplicable sense of displacement.” One anonymous observer claimed the demonstration caused a goose to vanish temporarily, a claim skeptics dismiss as allegorical.
The City’s Response
The city council declined Ferranti’s offer to repaint Florence at his own expense, citing concerns over “total invisibility” potentially creating chaos. Minutes from a meeting held in late 1697 record a heated debate about the morality of “making the visible disappear” as well as concerns over public safety should entire streets vanish.
Ferranti, meanwhile, continued to offer his invention privately, but no other records indicate that any further applications of the invisible paint were undertaken. The last mention of Ferranti is in a brief 1702 diary entry noting that he “departed for Venice with a brush, a jar of invisible paint, and a heart full of dreams.”
Legacy and Theories
Historians remain divided over whether Ferranti’s invisible paint ever truly existed or whether the episode was an elaborate hoax or allegory. Some scholars argue Ferranti was experimenting with a rare mineral pigment that refracted light in unusual ways. Others suggest the story served as a philosophical critique of Baroque art, a statement that the essence of beauty lies in perception, not in the visible.
The Invisible Paint Incident has since inspired works of art, theater, and even modern experimental art projects. In Florence today, a small plaque at Piazza della Signoria commemorates Ferranti’s invention
“Here once stood a vision unseen, the dream of making art disappear.”