Fin-de-siècle Florence was a city of contrasts. On the one hand the city, the cradle of the Italian Renaissance, was a place of sober education, as so wonderfully portrayed in E. M. Forster’s novel A Room with a View. Wealthy visitors would often take home a marble copy of a Renaissance masterpiece by Michelangelo, or Giambologna, or a copy after the Antique, often purchased from the well-known Bazzanti or Frilli galleries, to demonstrate their sophistication. On the other hand, Florence was the playground for wealthy European aristocrats for whom the city was a place for self-indulgence and high living, epitomized by the notorious wild parties thrown at the Palazzo Ruccelai by Countess Lysina Ruccelai.

The present extraordinary marble, entitled The Flight of Love, is the ultimate dynamic virtuoso composition. A beautiful woman flies downwards, her arms stretched out behind her. She looks to the side at Cupid emerging from the clouds, seeming to direct her towards another love. Garlands of flowers, billowing clouds and a pair of love birds combine to form a spiral of gravity-defying marble that could have graced the most glamorous Tuscan interior or been acquired by a visiting socialite to take home a piece of Florentine frivolity.

Few biographical details are published concerning Mario Dante Zoi. He exhibited occasionally around 1900, but he seems mainly to have produced oriental-inspired figure marbles. One exceptional figure of a Dancer, made with coloured marbles, is in the extraordinary collects ion of Franco Maria Ricci at the Labirinto della Masone.