Painting
In the early-15th century Florence was home to the architects, painters, sculptors and craftsmen who transformed the image of the city. The Medici family was able to finance and support the work of these artists using the wealth they accumulated from their banking and industrial activities while their mercantile operations contributed to popularising the style that evolved in Florence.Although Piero il Gottoso (1416-1469) was also an art collector and expert of refined taste, it was his son Lorenzo il Magnifico (1449-1492) who became famous for his generous patronage of culture and the arts. He and his court regarded Florence as the natural successor to Hellenic culture, and as a city that embraced the traditions of ancient Greece after Constantinople fell to the Turks.
The walls of the convent of San Marco , sponsored by Cosimo il Vecchio (1389-1464) were painted by Fra Angelico . As was customary in the 15th century, painters, sculptors, architects and craftsmen learned the skills of their respective fields together, in the workshops of experienced masters, which mediated the new trends that developed in the Florentine style. In the light of this model, Filippo Lippi and Andrea del Castagno continued Fra Angelico's style in art, while artists such as Botticelli , who was Filippo Lippi's student, Ghirlandaio , Piero il Cosimo and Lorenzo di Credi gravitated around Lorenzo il Magnifico.
At the beginning of the 16th century, after the Medici were driven out of Florence and the republic was instituted, many great artists, including Leonardo da Vinci , Raphael and Michelangelo , lived and worked in Florence at the same time, and it is to this fact that the city can attribute its long-lasting leading role in the arts, even though Rome temporarily took over as a cultural centre in the first half of the century. Michelangelo received commissions from Pope Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici, 1475-1521) for works to be carried out primarily in Rome but also in Florence.
By the period of Grand Duke Cosimo I (1519-1574) the love and patronage of the arts had grown into a family tradition. Cosimo gave commissions to artists such as Giambologna , Bronzino , who also worked as his official portraitist, and Giorgio Vasari , all of whom were the grand duke's personal favourites. Vasari, one of the proponents of the establishment of the Accademia in Florence, designed the Uffizi commissioned by Cosimo I and linked it with Palazzo Pitti, which had been purchased by the Medici family. After the grand duke's death his son Francesco I (1541-1587) laid down the foundations for the museum-to-be in the Uffizi and exhibited the finest pieces of the Medici collection from 1584.
Thus, the fundamental institutions that determined art patronage, the art market, the activities of painters, sculptors and architects, as well as the work pursued by art critics and art historians in Europe and the rest of the world from the end of the 16th century were established under the auspices of Medici rule.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Tommaso di Criistofano Fini
known as Masolino da Panicale
(Panicale in Valdelsa 1383/1384-1440)
Saint Julian
1423-1425 ca.
painting on panel; 115 x 54 cm
Florence, Museo Diocesano di Santo Stefano al Ponte
The panel, portraying the elegant figure of Saint Julian dressed as a knight, was part of a triptych commissioned between 1423 and 1425 by the affluent Carnesecchi family for the chapel situated in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence.The triptych showed in the centre the Madonna and Child and at the sides a Saint Catherine (after whom the chapel was named) and this Saint Julian; it must then have been completed by a predella illustrating scenes from the lives of the two saints. The Carnesecchi chapel, frescoed by Paolo Uccello and enhanced by this large triptych on golden background that Giorgio Vasari mentions as a work of collaboration between Masolino and Masaccio , represented a precious encapsulation of the work of various outstanding artistic figures of the Florentine culture of the early Renaissance. Since the chapel was demolished in 1650, and the Carnesecchi triptych was dismembered and dispersed between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the panel showing Saint Julian is the only certain evidence that remains of this exceptional complex. Some critics have identified the portrayal of the parricide committed by the young knight Julian on the instigation of the devil, and his subsequent repentance followed by a life of expiation, as one of the sections of the predella that was originally part of the triptych, but this conjecture is effectively subject to considerable debate. These episodes are synthetically illustrated in two small panels which have been alternatively identified by the critics as belonging to the Carnesecchi triptych: the panel attributed to Masolino conserved in the Musée Ingres in Montauban and the panel attributed to Masaccio in the Museo Horne in Florence. The dating of the Carnesecchi triptych is placed by certain critics around 1424-1425, undoubtedly a very particular period in the career of Masolino, since it marked the start of the execution of the frescoes in the Brancacci chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, in collaboration with Masaccio, and then, on 1 September 1425, his departure for Hungary in the retinue of Pippo Spano, a Florentine merchant who had risen to the rank of military commander under the Emperor Sigismund. Therefore the Saint Julian, with its isolated figure set upon a gold background, comprises the cultural, stylistic and even sentimental elements that Masolino brought with him to the distant land of Hungary. The figure of the saint has a corporeal solidity that certainly derives from Masaccio, while at the same time his elusive three-quarters pose, the abstraction of the gold background, and above all the melancholy that animates the facial expression and the head just slightly tilted towards the shoulder, give a strong psychological connotation to the personality of the knight who killed his father at the instigation of the devil and by mistake. Furthermore, these characterising elements evoke the essence of the courtly spirit and manners of the International Gothic, by now in decline.
Andrea Mantegna
(Isola di Carturo 1431-Mantua 1506)
Portrait of an apostolic
protonotary, Cardinal Carlo de' Medici
1470 ca.
painting on panel; 40.5 x 30.5 cm
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
This small portrait on panel was originally part of the Medici collections although it is not known who commissioned it or where it was painted. Its attribution to Mantegna , almost universally accepted by the experts, began to crystallise in the nineteenth century. Various hypotheses have been put forward regarding the identity of the person portrayed. The latter was the illegitimate son of Cosimo il Vecchio and a Circassian slave bought in Venice in 1427. The figure's dark complexion and strong features would therefore have been inherited from his mother. Carlo de' Medici was born in 1428 and evidently lived under the protection of his famous parent, since in 1450, he was made canon of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and later apostolic protonotary in Rome. The prelate was known to be interested in collecting, particularly Pisanello medals and antiques related to his dynasty, but this was not unusual for a man living in the papal court in the fifteenth century. Although the portrait is quite small in size, the quality of the painting seen in the marked naturalism of the skin is appreciable. There are no attempts to beautify or embellish the figure, shown in threequarters profile with Flemish connotations, although presented in a different way from Northern models. They are stylistically similar to the numerous coins and medals present in the many, Florentine, Roman and also Venetian Renaissance collections, which were undoubtedly well known to Mantegna. A personage like Cardinal Carlo, if it is in fact him, who, even though the illegitimate son of Cosimo, successfully undertook an ecclesiastical career, illustrates that there were ongoing relations between the Florentine lineage and the papal court, which although often difficult, were always decisive.
Andrea di Bartolo di Bargilla
known as Andrea del Castagno
(Castagno 1421 ca.-Firenze 1457)
Pippo Spano
1450 ca.
fresco, detached and transferred to canvas
250 x 154 cm
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
In the villa belonging to the Carducci family in Legnaia, a village close to Florence, we can see a "beautiful … [room by the hand of Andreino, with sibyls and famous Florentine men", as recorded by Albertini in his Memoriale as far back as 1510. The frescoes, barely mentioned by Vasari but described in detail by the nineteenth century commentator, Gaetano Milanesi, were discovered in 1847. They were arranged in a reconstruction of the whole perspective of the wall section, thanks also to the donation of fragments of the frieze, detached in 1907 and 1910, by the then owner of the villa, Cesare D'Ancona. In the loggia, the row of nine figures - three Florentine men-at-arms (Pippo Spano, Farinata degli Uberti and Niccolň Acciaioli), three famous women (the Cumaean Sibyl, Esther and Tomiri) and three writers (Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio) were separated by an elaborate decoration of Corinthian style above a fake marble plinth. Considerable remnants of the frescoes of one of the shorter sides were discovered in 1948-1949: a Madonna and Child flanked by the figures of Adam and Eve, while, according to the documents, on the opposite side was a Crucifixion with Saint Jerome and Our Lady. Apart from the three female figures, who can be interpreted through the moral virtues attributed to them (the Cumaean Sibyl had predicted the advent of Christ, and the two Queens, Esther and Tomiri, had acted for the good of their people), the iconographic programme was designed to underscore the political and literary glory of Florence. There are no Greek or Roman heroes in the frescoes of the Carducci villa, and the references are to the protagonists of later Florentine history. Pippo Spano was born Filippo Scolari in 1369, in Tizzano close to Florence, and died near Buda on 27 December 1426. His dazzling rise to power, initially in the service of the Primate of Hungary, Cardinal Demetrio Szecky († 1387) and then in that of Sigismund, King of Bohemia (1361-1437), who appointed him as chief of his army, was the result of his incredible skill as a military strategist. He was also responsible for major improvements in the fortifications in the south of the country, where his exceptional capacity for mathematical calculations certainly stood him in good stead, as well as for a series of victories in the field, principally against the Turks between 1417 and 1425. Lord of Oroza, supreme Count of Timisoara (1407), administrator of the gold mines of the State and Knight of the Golden Spur of the Order of the Dragon, he exerted a great influence on the imagination of the Florentines, and in particular on Filippo Carducci, one of the most prominent politicians of the time. The cycle is dated to 1450, or shortly afterwards, in view of stylistic and documentary considerations; the gonfalonier Filippo Carducci, who must have commissioned the frescoes, died in July 1449, and in 1451, his sons sold the villa to relatives.
Filippino Lippi (?)
(Prato 1457 ca.-Florence 1504)
The penitent Saint Jerome in the Wilderness
1485 ca.
painting on panel; 46.3 x 33.6 cm
Budapest, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum
The sudden appearance and rapid spreading of the cult of Saint Jerome is an intriguing phenomenon of the religious life of fifteenth century Florence. The fourth century Father of the Church had always been respected as one of the greatest philosophers of early Christianity, but a specific veneration of his figure had not been developed before. In the fifteenth century however, two congregations under his patronage settled around Florence within a short period, and toward the middle of the century Cosimo de' Medici himself undertook to build a new monastery for one of these. The cult of the scholar saint - who was often represented in his study devoting himself to his books - probably relates to the development of the community of Humanist scholars, for whom Jerome might have served as a forerunner. The most widely diffused image of the saint was though of another type, the one representing him in penitence, retired to the wilderness - possibly to incite the scholar to an unceasing self-reflection regarding his own way of life and to remind him of the relativity of knowledge obtained from books. On the basis of the present painting's measurements, it may have also been intended for private contemplation. The artist intended to reflect the spirit rather than the the letter of the word in which Jerome reported his experiences in the wilderness. Several of the narrative episodes are omitted, and the physical marks of self-torture are not shown, either; the emphasis is laid on the motions of the mind rather than the mortification of the flesh. The drama is set within the soul, but the storm of emotions is projected by the savage environment as well: the dried, gnarled tree in the foreground or the ragged, robust rocks reflect the struggle within the soul of Jerome. Just as in the saint's own letter, where he told about feeling as if his environment would come to life to participate in his torment: "I used to dread my very cell as though it knew my thoughts...".
Sandro Botticelli
(Florence 1445-1510)
Pallas and the Centaur
1482 ca.
painting on canvas; 207 x 148 cm
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
The work is described therein as a "painting on wood [sic! above the door of the antechamber in which is painted Camilla with a satyr [in another copy "Camilla with I satyr"", along with a painting on panel showing "nine figures of men and women", which can presumably be identified as the Primavera, "in the ground floor chamber alongside the chamber of Lorenzo" in the "old house" on Via Larga which belonged to the Medici branch of Lorenzo il Vecchio, cousins of Lorenzo il Magnifico . The aspect of the work that has intrigued critics most is the iconography, and many scholars have engaged in the complex deciphering of the allegory. The female figure, crowned with olive, armed with a halberd and with a shield on her back has generally been identified as Pallas or Minerva. Some scholars see her as Camilla, queen of the Volsci, celebrated by Virgil in the Aeneid, and some identified her as the armed Venus of Kythera described by Pausanius. The identification with Minerva, is based not only on the iconography relating to the goddess, crowned and girdled with the shoots of the olive that was sacred to her, but also on a later inventory of 1516 where the work is described as (Minerva and the centaur) and not a satyr as in 1498. The allegory is centred on the submission of the centaur, who is holding a bow in his right hand and has a quiver slung over his shoulder, as the goddess gently holds him back by his thick locks. According to the most convincing interpretation sees it is a moral allegory of the triumph of the Mind or Reason, inspired by the Divine, over bestial and instinctual life. This meaning implies a lofty and cultured patron, who could well have been Lorenzo il Magnifico himself, to whom the numerous interlaced Medici olive branches, a family device, might allude. It is conjectured that Lorenzo may have intended the painting as a gift for the wedding of his cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco.
Lorenzo di Credi and workshop
((Florence 1459?-1537)
Adoration of the Child
XVI century, early
painting on panel; diam. 87 cm with frame diam. 120 cm ca.
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
An analysis of the tondo in question, which is thought to have been executed by Credi's workshop, prompts us to make a brief consideration on the activity of the many workshops that were active in Florence in the fifteenth century. With the romantic image of an artist living and working at his creative efforts in seclusion no longer in auge, many specialist studies have endeavoured to throw some light on how work was organised in the workshops and on the collaboration between maestro and pupils. Lorenzo di Credi was apparently very reluctant to accept the collaboration or contributions from his pupils for the commissions he had undertaken, whereas, on the contrary, he allowed free use of his cartoons or drawings. The work in question also comes into the category of those that were begun by the maestro, who executed the most important or difficult parts, and completed by his collaborators. Lorenzo di Credi, in turn, came from the famous school of Verrocchio, where he was a fellow disciple of Leonardo with whom he had a very lively stylistic dialogue. During his stay in Venice to execute the equestrian monument to Colleoni, Verrocchio nominated Lorenzo his heir and regent, a sign that the young painter had reached a level of maturity that ensured his ability to carry out the task. His appealing compositions, endowed with the simplicity and equilibrium of the Florentine Renaissance, enjoyed great success in those years and have continued to satisfy the taste of connoisseurs and collectors of early masters up to the present day.
Leonardo da Vinci
(Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
Study for the Head of a Soldier in the Battle of Anghiari
1504-1505 ca.
red chalk on very pale pink prepared paper(recto), red chalk on unprepared paper (verso)
226 x 186 mm
Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum
The magnificent studies of heads in Budapest were produced for the ill-fated Battle of Anghiari in the Sala del Gran Consiglio (Hall of the Grand Council) of the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence. Leonardo was commissioned to decorate one of the two longer walls of the hall around the middle of 1503, and a year later his younger rival, Michelangelo, was invited to make a pendant. The compositions commemorated two decisive military events of the Republic of Florence, the victory of Cascina, where the Florentine troops gained over Pisa in 1364, and their triumph over the Milanese at Anghiari in 1440. Leonardo worked on the battle scene from October 1503 with interruptions until May 1506, when he returned to Milan leaving the unfinished work behind once and for all. The heavily deteriorated wall painting, enclosed with a wooden railing in 1513, counted among the sights of Florence; its last traces were obliterated by Vasari during the renovation of the hall in 1563. Although neither the wall painting nor its cartoon have survived, with the help of contemporary accounts, copies and Leonardo's extant sketches, the destroyed work can be reconstructed. Out of the complete composition, Leonardo only painted the crucial episode of the battle, the Fight for the Standard, the moment when the young Florentine mercenary, Pier Giampaolo Orsini is just about to wrench the standard from the hand of Niccolň Piccinino, condottiere of the Milanese. The scene, for "in it rage, fury and revenge are perceived as much in the men as in the horses" (Vasari 1568), offered a perfect occasion for the representation of the intense emotions and extreme states of mind reflecting on the human face. The Budapest studies of heads, with their vitality resulting from live model, and their dramatic force of expression, faithfully recall that shocking horror of the brutal fighting rage of the soldiers, rushing on each other with unrestrained ferocity in the heat of the battle that Leonardo termed pazzia bestialissima (most beastly madness). From the 1490s onwards, Leonardo found pleasure in using chalk in the most varied possible ways, for quick, small-size sketches and carefully elaborated studies alike. In the masterly modelled Budapest drawings, Leonardo first sketched the outlines of the head with quick, thin lines, then he shaded the face with dense, slightly curved parallel hatchings. He softened the transitions between the deeper tones and the highlights by rubbing away the chalk. Finally, he stressed the contours of the head around the lips, the chin and the neck with heavy lines. On the basis of the survived contracts and invoices, Leonardo commenced to draw the cartoon after May 1504, in the Sala del Papa of Santa Maria Novella, and he started to paint the mural not earlier than April 1505 onwards. The red and black chalk studies, elaborated in the greatest detail, must have been produced between 1504 and 1505, in the last phase prior to the execution of the full-scale cartoon.
Leonardo da Vinci
(Vinci 1452-Amboise 1519)
'La scapigliata' or 'Dama scapigliata' (Female Head)'
XVI century, beginning
painting on panel; 24.7 x 21 cm
Parma, Galleria Nazionale
Purchased in 1839 by the Galleria Nazionale di Parma as a work by Leonardo , the small panel has aroused doubts in some critics regarding the attribution, as a result of the unusual technique and the appearance of the work as a very 'modern' sketch. A documentary confirmation, of the attribution could come from the fact that a "painting showing the head of a woman with tousled hair, sketched … work of Leonardo da Vinci" is cited in an inventory of the Collezione Gonzaga in Mantua, dating to 1627, the year in which the collection was tragically sold to Charles I Stuart, King of England, only to be dispersed on his death. Some scholars have suggested that the painting can be identified with that mentioned in 1531 in the apartment of Margherita Paleologa, the consort of Federico Gonzaga, son of Isabella d'Este. If this is the case, then this unfinished picture may represent all that the marchioness managed to obtain, despite her continuous and pressing requests to the artist for his works and her own portrait, which remained at the cartoon stage and is conserved in the Departement des Arts Graphiques of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. It is observed by researchers that there are strong resemblances of a technical character between this Female Head and the head of the angel in the second version of the Virgin of the Rocks, probably begun in the early 1490s and completed between 1506 and 1508. The painting is dated the early years of the sixteenth century, a chronological attribution which appears all the more likely if we consider that the unfinished head may have been a preliminary study for the head of the Virgin which Leonardo was to have executed for Isabella d'Este in 1501, and which it appears he never actually delivered.
Raffaello known as Raphael
(Urbino 1483-Rome 1520)
Esterházy Madonna
1508
painting on wood; 28.5 x 21.5 cm
Budapest, Szépmuvészeti Múzeum, Esterházy collection; inv. no. 71
In the foreground of this delicate masterpiece, the kneeling Virgin is represented along with her child and the infant Saint John the Baptist. The composition masterfully direct the spectator's eye towards the scroll in John's hand: not only the eyes of each figure are fixed on it, but the movements of their bodies are converging towards this common focus point, too. Although the painting itself has been left unfinished (the figures of the children as well as the face and décolletage of the Virgin, were not developed beyond the stage of undermodelling), it is obvious for anyone conversant with the traditions of Christian art that John's scroll should include his words prophesying Christ's sacrifice: "Behold the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world". (John 1:29). These words, referring to the fulfilment of the promise of divine redemption in the person of Jesus, constitute the thematic message of the image. The iconography of the Madonna with the two children in a landscape, which lends a pre-eminent role to the prophecy of John, was developed in Florence, possibly stimulated by patriotic sentiments as John was the city's patron saint. During his stay in Florence (1504-1508), Raphael created several variations on the theme. In these, as in his Florentine works in general, his prime source of inspiration was Leonardo. He was following the example of Leonardo's compositional ideas in arranging the three figures into a cone (a form connoting harmony by its symmetry), and also in working out the complex interplay of glances and gestures that establishes an organic yet dynamic unity within the group. The young artist used Leonardo's sketches as a point of departure for the Esterházy Madonna too, but his response became much more free and independent than in the earlier treatments of the subject. His confidence may have been largely enhanced by the fact that his Leonardesque source itself was based on a classical sculpture that Raphael - at an earlier stage in his life - could study firsthand, as well: an exceptionally intact example of the Crouching Aphrodite was in the possession of Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro in Urbino. Raphael used the classical example as a model not only for the figure of the Virgin but for that of the infant John as well, thus creating a delicate rhyming between the two figures. Given the maturity and boldness of the composition, the painting may be dated to 1508, the end of Raphael's Florentine period, and it can be supposed that its completion was prevented by the artist's leave for Rome. The tiny picture is not only a synthesis but a step forward, too. By placing the infant Jesus atop a hill, Raphael intensified the asymmetrical component within the composition, whereas he also enhanced the dynamism and power of the movements. Thus the conical structure, originally rather static and compact, is relaxed, and a little bit of disquietude penetrates, for the first time, Raphael's divine harmony. Nevertheless, the general mood is defined by the same soft melancholy as earlier, suggesting a quiet resignation to the predestined faith.
Michelangelo Buonarroti
(Caprese 1475-Rome 1564)
Study for the head of the Madonna of the so called Tondo Doni
1504 (?)
red pencil on paper; 200 x 172 mm
Florence, Casa Buonarroti
This splendid drawing, one of Michelangelo's earliest exercises in red pencil, was almost certainly executed from a male model; effectively we should not forget how often in Michelangelo's time, male models were used for images of women. Some scholars identify it as a study for the head of the Madonna in the Tondo Doni. Another theory considers that the drawing could have been a study for the head of the prophet Jonah in the Sistine Chapel. However, arguing against this theory is the comparison with Michelangelo's drawings for the ceiling, and with the actual pictorial rendering of the figure of the prophet, who among other things is facing the opposite way from the head in the drawing. The drawing was also considered 'a faithful copy' of the so-called Dying Alexander, the famous Hellenistic sculpture now in the Galleria degli Uffizi, but which was still in Rome at the time. Moreover, the mysterious and elusive expression of the face in Michelangelo's drawing, which appears to avert its gaze from earthly affairs, justifies the various opinions and the debate, and it is significant that the autograph of this masterpiece has never been placed in doubt. The Tondo Doni, the panel painting showing the Holy Family housed in the Galleria degli Uffizi, was made by Michelangelo probably in connection with the marriage of Agnolo Doni with Maddalena Strozzi, which took place in 1504. However, once again opinions diverge on the dating of the drawing: Michael Hirst, for example, while accepting the relation with the painting, discerns in the study stylistic elements that, in view of Michelangelo's notorious lack of punctuality in delivering his commissions, have led him to date it around 1506.
Pontormo
(Pontorme 1494-Florence 1557)
Madonna and Child with Saint Lucy, Saint Michael Archangel and another two saints
known as Madonna di San Ruffillo
1514 ca.
detached fresco; 223 x 196 cm;
Florence, Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata, Cappella di San Luca
The work executed by Pontormo, which was originally in the first chapel on the south side in the church of San Raffaello, suppressed at the wish of the Grand Duke Peter Leopold of Habsburg Lorraine in 1785. The composition, of monumental layout but pervaded by an intense sense of unquiet, portrays the Virgin seated in the centre with the Child on her knee, and Saint Lucy standing on the left, turning towards the observer, with the unmistakable attribute of the plate bearing the eyes that were gouged out during her martyrdom. Her counterpart on the other side is Saint Michael Archangel, with his wings outstretched and gazing towards the Virgin, holding the closed scales in his right hand and his sword just visible, held at his side by his left hand. The other two saints appear difficult to identify, and their names are not even given by Vasari. They are distinguished solely by the attribute of the books that both are holding, the female saint in her lap and the bearded, kneeling saint with the volume resting on the floor. For these, Costamagna has arguably proposed an identification with Agnes and Zechariah, albeit without providing adequate justifications. From the three preparatory drawings known to date, one in Dresden (inv. no. C80 recto) and two in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (nos. 6554 F recto and 6556 F verso), emerge the influence of the graphics of Fra' Bartolomeo, the artist whose Pitti altarpiece also inspired the composition. The interest in the works of the friar can be explained by Jacopo's apprenticeship in the workshop of Albertinelli, who was one of Fra' Bartolomeo's followers and assistants. In the pose of the kneeling saint, and in his pleated drapery, we can perceive echoes of the figures of the other great Florentine master of the first three decades of the sixteenth century, Andrea del Sarto, whose workshop Pontormo had frequented for a while with Rosso Fiorentino.
Agnolo di Cosimo Tori known as Bronzino
(Florence 1503-1572) and workshop
Portrait of Cosimo I de' Medici
1550 ca.
painting on panel; 114 x 89 cm
Florence, Museo degli Argenti
Within the official iconography of I. Cosimo de' Medici (Florence 1519-1574), the portrait that shows him "dressed in full armour and with his hand resting on his helmet" (Vasari, 1568) was widely disseminated and enjoyed enormous popularity, as testified to by at least twenty-five known exemplars. Until 1555, Cosimo I was engaged in the defence of the Tuscan state that he had built up from the external threat posed by Florentine exiles and by the French. In this portrait the Duke wished to offer the image of an experienced military leader, the son of the famous condottiere Giovanni dalle Bande Nere, who had died prematurely and in veneration of whom he had grown up. Cosimo I is portrayed in a three-quarter figure pose, his imperious gaze lost in space and his right hand resting on the helmet, glittering like the armour, some pieces of which miraculously survived the Lorraine dispersion of the vast Medici armoury and are conserved in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello. Of the Australian prototype, very likely commissioned by the erudite Paolo Giovio for his own famous collection of illustrious men situated in the villa in Como, this portrait retains the monumental layout and the virtuoso skill in the rendering of the metallic gleams and glints of the armour, albeit in colours that are darker and more contrasting than the luminous clarity of the first version, indicative of the intervention of an assistant in the pictorial translation. With this painting and the many others executed over his industrious artistic career, Bronzino justly attained the role of official portrait painter to the Medici family and court, even though, in his last years, he had to rely increasingly on his assistant, Alessandro Allori.
Giorgio Vasari
(Arezzo 1511-Florence 1574)
Vulcan's Forge
1567-1568 ca.
painting on copper, 38 x 28 cm
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi
The small painting on copper presents a sophisticated allegorical composition, with Minerva on the left bearing the instruments of the architect, the compass and square, in her right hand while with the left, she presents a drawing to Vulcan. Vulcan is intent on engraving the shield of Archelaos, which bears the astrological signs of Capricorn and Aries, respectively of Duke Cosimo I , and the Prince Francesco de' Medici , set on either side of a globe. Also part of the central group are one putto bearing a lance, and two others struggling to hold up a plumed helmet in the right foreground. In the background on the left, naked youths intent on drawing are portrayed in the Accademia del Disegno, founded in 1563, watched over by the Three Graces, symbolising the arts of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. On the right, in the middle distance, other youths are working on pieces of armour in Vulcan's forge. Aloft, flying above, is Peace bearing a wreath of olive, the plant sacred to Minerva. The painting was commissioned along with others by Prince Francesco I de' Medici around the years 1567-1568, from various artists of Vasari's circle, almost as if he wished to hold a sort of testimonial to the talents available in Florence at the time, in view of the forthcoming decoration of his study in Palazzo Vecchio known as the Studiolo. The subjects of the 'miniature' paintings were elaborated by Vasari's friend, Don Vincenzo Borghini, the erudite spedalingo and prior of the Spedale degli Innocenti , and translated into the paintings and drawings that have come down to us.
Jacopo Zucchi
(Florence? 1541 ca.-Rome 1596)
The Gathering of Coral
XVI century, ninth decade
oil on copper; 55 x 45 cm
Rome, Galleria Borghese
The dimensions are small, suited to a 'virtuoso' cabinet, and the surface is glazed and precious. The invention is 'very delightful and graceful' in line with the parameters provided by Vincenzo Borghini in Florence ten years earlier to Giorgio Vasari and his team of artists that already included Jacopo di Piero Zucca, for the decoration of the Studiolo of Francesco I . Effectively there is no doubt about the analogous princely destination of The Gathering of Coral, datable around the start of the ninth decade of the sixteenth century. It can clearly be related to the information recorded by the seventeenth century biographer Giovanni Baglione: that for "Ferdinando de' Medici at the time a Cardinal" he painted "a study" with this subject "which is in the palagio of the Medici garden" in Rome. A rehabilitated pagan amulet, syncretised by Christian iconography, coral is born, according to Ovid, from the blood that spurted from the severed head of the Medusa; it is actually of animal origin despite resembling in appearance a vegetable of mineral consistency. There can be little doubt that coral exerted a distinct fascination on the collector's curiosity of the future Grand Duke. In fact, Ferdinando also commissioned from Zucchi a design for a fountain on the same subject. The refined intellectual climate harked back to the binomial of the precious rarities, Nature and Art, that had inspired the Florentine Studiolo, in comparison to which Zucchi's approach appears to be alleviated of exacting hermetic and alchemic implications. What prevails, instead, is the courtly play of capricious beauty, revealed in the lavish array of pearls, crustaceans, oysters and mussels - and coral, naturally - and also embodied, in the centre of the composition, in the portraits of various ladies of the time, and worthy to be seen and marvelled at. The same elegant levity invests the entirely exotic presence of the Negro hunters, the parrot and the monkey that, bedecked with precious baubles, mimics the Manneristic pose of the exuberant cherub in the foreground. Moreover "vivacity and liveliness of figure" were the qualities recognised in Zucchi by his master Vasari. A judgement that justifies Zucchi's inclination to temper the Michelangelism of the Florentine line.