Journal articles on the topic 'Granprincipe Ferdinando de' Medici'

Abstract The French royal family was living in exile at Blois when the Queen Mother of France, Catherine de’ Medici (b. 1519), dictated her will on the morning of her death, on 5 January 1589. She bequeathed to her granddaughter, Christine of Lorraine (1565–1637), one half of her movable possessions. This paper explores the nature and meanings embedded in the testamentary bequest and the corresponding inventory of the movable goods acquired by Christine through this gift and eventually brought to Florence on the occasion of her marriage in 1589 to Ferdinando de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1549–1609). A translation of the inventory is provided in an online appendix.

Nei primi decenni del Seicento la pittura decorativa a Firenze risulta ancora legata all'ornamentazione tradizionale tardomanierista attuata nei modi di Alessandro Allori o di Bernardino Barbatelli detto il Poccetti. L'interesse per le novità e per l'aggiornamento dell'ambiente artistico fiorentino portarono il granduca Ferdinando II a chiamare a Firenze tra il 1636 ed il 1637 Pietro da Cortona, Angelo Michele Colonna e Agostino Mitelli. I due bolognesi completarono il ciclo pittorico celebrativo del governo di Ferdinando cui aveva dato inizio Giovanni da San Giovanni, con la decorazione delle tre sale di rappresentanza del quartiere estivo di palazzo Pitti realizzata tra il 1637 ed il 1641. L'intervento, condotto secondo il più moderno linguaggio barocco che vede la perfetta integrazione dell'illusionismo architettonico, che supera i limiti dello spazio reale, con le scene figurative, verrà a costituire nell'ambiente fiorentino un ineludibile modello di riferimento nella decorazione d'interni, soluzioni di grande modernità su cui si formerà Jacopo Chiavistelli e i giovani della sua scuola. Anche Giovan Carlo, fratello del granduca, nel 1637 diede inizio ad una serie di trasformazioni che si protrassero per oltre un ventennio, trasformando gli ambienti a lui assegnati in Pitti in veri e propri luoghi di delizie, decorati dagli artisti più significativi del momento quali ad esempio Angelo Michele Colonna, Agostino Mitelli, Pietro da Cortona, Jacopo Chiavistelli. Fu quest'ultimo frescante che con i suoi 'scolari', fin dagli anni Cinquanta fu attivo in palazzo Pitti, decorando a quadratura gli ambienti dei quartieri dei membri della famiglia granducale, ambienti che in gran parte sono andati perduti in quanto interessati dalle ristrutturazioni lorenesi e sabaude. Con i lavori commissionati dal gran principe Ferdinando si chiude in palazzo Pitti la grande stagione del quadraturismo barocco fiorentino.

Ottavio Vannini's Fresco, Lorenzo the Magnificent as a Patron of the Arts (Fig. I), forms part of a cycle painted around 1623 in the Palazzo Pitti to celebrate the marriage of Ferdinando II and Vittoria della Rovere. Lorenzo is seen surrounded by artists who proffer the fruits of their creative endeavor. Among them we immediately recognize the young Michelangelo, who presents a marble copy of an antique fawn's head, made, Vasari tells us, at Lorenzo's urging, and to the extreme left Giuliano da Sangallo, who holds under his arm a drawing from the façade of the Medici villa, Poggio a Caiano. The implication of Vannini's fresco is beyond doubt. By evoking the history of the early Medici, the Grand Dukes hoped to establish a framework within which their own glory might shine all the more brilliantly.

Between 1584 and 1588, the Florentine merchant Filippo Sassetti sent a whole sequence of letters from India to his friends and the grand ducal court in Florence. He informed his correspondents about local Indian plants, animals, the mechanisms of commercial exchange and Indian social structures and politics. Apart from publishing and editing letters, the scholarship so far has focused on linguistic, geographic, medical and ethnographical issues related to his letters. This article focuses on a set of rarely explored resources: the valuable objects sent with Sassetti's letters to the grand duke Francesco de Medici (1541–87) and his brother cardinal Ferdinando (1549–1609). The letters are exceptional, since they allow one to reconstruct the origins and itineraries of the items that Sassetti describes in detail. None of the objects survived in Florence but some of them are traceable to the Medici inventories of the sixteenth century.

Abstracttitle SUMMARY /title Records in the Medici archives report a payment for an optical game made by the painter Ludovico Buti in February 1593. The detailed description of the scientific tool corresponds exactly to the optical game from the Medicean collection that is currently conserved in the Museum of History of Science in Florence. This game was initially attributed to Jean Franois Niceron. This attribution is disproved by the fact that Buti's death took place two years before Niceron's birth. The tool allows one to see the Portraits of the Duke of Lorraine and his daughter Christine at the same time, thanks to a mirror and 37 prismatic bars where the two faces are painted. Ludovico Buti made the tool for Grand Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici, probably following the instructions provided by the cartographer and monk Egnazio Danti in his commentary on Vignola's work.

This article aims to analyse how and to what extent juridical and diplomatic issues influenced Angelo Poliziano's Coniurationis commentarium, the very famous literary account of the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici brothers (1478). Written immediately after the plot, Poliziano's work is a sophisticated literary transposition of the historical events and is conceived as the cornerstone of the Medici propaganda, aimed at supporting the Florentine government against the accusations by the instigators of the attack, Pope Sixtus IV and the King of Naples, Ferdinando of Aragon. In particular, the juridical controversy between Florence and Rome, which is built on different legal texts and doctrinal documents, plays a not irrelevant role in the composition of Poliziano's work. The Commentarium indeed shows unspoken but direct correlations with the legal consilia commissioned by Lorenzo de' Medici from the most eminent Italian jurists, who formulated the Medici's official defence against the pope. Poliziano himself actively collaborated in the collection of these consilia and was influenced by diplomatic and legal issues also in the revision of his literary work two years after the composition, in 1480, in a changed political context.

On 14 October 1628 the Medici court witnessed a performance of Marco da Gagliano's opera La Flora, a work whose ostensible purpose was to celebrate a marriage uniting Florence and Parma. This event occurred three months after Ferdinando II assumed the title of grand duke of Tuscany, ending a period of regency government that had begun in 1621, during which Ferdinando's mother and grandmother ruled Tuscany. An analysis of La Flora reveals that its allegorical themes extend beyond mere celebration of a wedding, and that the opera actually reenacts the transfer of power from female to male rule.

AbstractEquestrian ballet was a spectacular genre of musical theater popular in the Baroque court. A phenomenon with military roots, the ballet communicated both the might and grace of its organizers, who often played starring roles. This essay explores the ballet’s centrality by tracing the itinerant opera singer and writer Margherita Costa’s use of the genre as a means of securing elite patronage: from an elegant manuscript libretto presented to Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici and later revised in print for Cardinal Jules Mazarin in Paris, to occasional poetry written for the Barberini in Rome, and even burlesque caricatures.

AbstractThis article discusses an unpublished vernacular Italian New World epic of the 1580s, which narrates the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The work was authored by the traveler, diplomat, and Orientalist Girolamo Vecchietti, and it is dedicated to Ferdinando I de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. Vecchietti’s poem is striking as a rare epic in terza rima, and as the sole surviving early modern Italian epic to center on the deeds of Cortés, rather than Columbus or Vespucci. It is also intriguing for its ambivalent attitude toward the Spanish colonizing enterprise, portrayed initially as a heroic evangelizing mission, but later shown in a more compromised light.

AbstractThe Venetian poet and librettist Giulio Strozzi (1583–1652) spent much of his career glorifying the Serenissima through a series of theatrical pieces. His only epic poem, the Venetia edificata (1621, 1624), while ostensibly a celebration of the republic, shows a level of commitment to Galileo Galilei (1564–1643) and to Galileo’s science that is unique among poets of the time, Venetian or otherwise. It is the apex of Strozzi’s artistic project to incorporate Galileo’s discoveries and texts into poetic works. The Venetia edificata also represents the culmination of a fifteen-year effort to gain patronage from the Medici Grand Dukes in Florence. While the first, incomplete version is dedicated to the Venetian Doge, the second, finished version is dedicated to Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici of Florence. More than a decade after Galileo’s departure from the Veneto to Florence, Strozzi cites from Galileo’s early works, creates a character inspired by Galileo, incorporates the principles of Galileo’s science into the organizing structure of the poem, and answers one of Galileo’s loudest complaints about Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (1581). Strozzi’s strategies both in writing the Venetia edificata and in seeking patronage for it underscore the ambivalent response to Galileo in contemporary poetry.

Abstracttitle SUMMARY /title This article discusses the working method of Bernardo Buontalenti, the court engineer of the Medici family under Cosimo I and his son Francesco I. Buontalenti is a crucial figure for the history of theatre, because he was able to consolidate and rivitalise a tradition, in so far as he used the pre-existing technical knowledge and, at the same time, reinterpreted it in an original way; moreover he "invented" a new profession. By analysing the Memoriale of Girolamo Seriacopi, Proweditore di Castello, which records the works made in Uffizi theatre for the wedding of Ferdinando I de' Medici and Cristina di Lorena (1589), I trace the dynamics of Buontalenti's building site in order to infer some knowledge about the stage machines from the work practice. This method of analysis enables me to make two hypotheses: on the one hand, Buontalenti's machinery was built according to the rules of Florentine tradition (which was in part different from the one from Pesaro which is the basis of Sabbatini's treaty and is usually considered the primary tool for understanding Buontalenti); on the other hand, the use of craft knowledge begins a specialization process that will develop along the seventeenth century.

The Accademia del Cimento, founded by the Medici princes, Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and his brother, Leopoldo, later Cardinal, had members and programmes of research very different from earlier academies in Italy. The Cimento foreshadowed later European academies and institutions specifically devoted to research and improvement of natural knowledge. It issued only one publication, the Saggi di naturali esperienze , and most of the observations and experimental results from its brief life remain unpublished. The Roman Accademia fisica-matematica, associated with Queen Christina of Sweden, continued to some extent its emphasis on experiment, while The Royal Society, with which it maintained links, placed even greater reliance on experiment and its validation through unvarnished publication. Comparisons between the Cimento and its contemporaries, The Royal Society and the Frenchacademy, illuminate the origin of scientific institutions in the early modern period.

Nel giorno, che sublime in bassi mantiIsabella imitava alto furore;Estolta con angelici sembiantiEbbe del senno altrui gloria maggiore;Alhor saggia tra 'I suon, saggia tra i cantiNon mosse piè, che non sorgesse Amore,Né voce aprì, che non creasse amanti,Né riso fè, che non beasse un core.Chi fu quel giorno a rimirar feliceDi tutt'altro quaggiù cesse il desio,Che sua vita per sempre ebbe serena.O di Scena dolcissima Sirena,O de' Teatri Italici Fenice,O tra Coturni insuperabil Clio.Gabriello ChiabreraIn the spring of 1589, the commedia dell'arte company known as the Gelosi travelled to Florence in order to perform for the wedding of Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici and Christine of Lorraine. The Gelosi were among the very best commedia dell'arte players of the time, their fame heralded throughout the noble and royal households of western Europe.

During the seventeenth century, the Medici family sought to legitimize its power by using art to communicate a political message, referring constantly to a precise code of sacred imagination and religious devotion. This article focuses on Antonio Veracini – a violinist in the service of Vittoria della Rovere – and on his op. 1, which shows a perfect agreement with the aesthetic ambitions of the grand duchess and with her double role of regent and defensor fidei. In the light of recent studies that reconsider the traditional historiographical approach to what has been called the ‘bigotry’ of Cosimo III, Antonio Veracini's sonatas – in comparison with two other coeval collections of trio sonatas dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinando (by Pietro Sanmartini and Giovan Battista Gigli) – show a full awareness of the expressive potential of the sonata, transforming it into a musical genre capable of conferring not only ‘pleasure’ and ‘delight’ but also symbolic significance within specific cultural contexts.

The complex figure of Boris Godunov, receiving mixed assessments of contemporaries and descendants, is still attracting attention of researchers. The author aims to answer the question of how Boris Godunov is portrayed in diplomatic correspondence, in particular in his letter of 6 June 1601 in response to the Tuscan Duke Ferdinando Medici. The Duke's petition for assistance to one of his subjects, a Tuscan merchant who wanted to trade in Russia, was rightly perceived in Moscow as a proposal to establish not only trade, but also diplomatic relations between the two states. That is why the communicative task of Godunov's response message is to convince the addressee of readiness for such a relationship; it determined the structure of his letter and selection of stylistic features. As the paper shows, Tsar Boris Fedorovich appears as a ruler who inherited the throne of the Rurik dynasty, yet realizes the peculiarity of his position, maintaining a high authority of Russian Czars and of the Moscow state, who is kind and polite with a foreign addressee and speaks to him in the language implying a system of ethical and ideological attitudes and social relationships of Russia of that time.

AbstractSources show that the Flemish artist Johannes Stradanus, whose career flourished from about 1555 in Florence, collaborated on several occasions on large-scale, temporary decorations, most of them commissioned by the grand dukes de'Medici, for important dynastic events such as baptisms, entries into cities and funerals. A multitude of artists and craftsmen carried out these decorations on the basis of often complicated iconographic programmes. In 1564, for instance, on the occasion of Michelangelo's funeral in S. Lorenzo, Stradanus painted the grisaille Michelangelo in 1529 in his dwelling in the Giudecca being received by the nobles of Venice by order of the Doge Andrea Gritti and the Signoria. In 1565, for the triumphal entry into the city of Johanna of Austria, he painted all the pictures decorating the triumphal arch erected on the Canto de' Tornaquinci. These consisted of five scenes glorifying the following exploits of rulers of the House of Austria: Rudolf conferring the Archdukedom of Austria on Albrecht I, Maximilian II being crowned emperor, Ferdinand I defending Vienna against the Turks, Albrecht slaing Adolf of Nassau in a battle, Philip II of Spain receiving the corona obsidionalis from Malta and two large trompe-l'oeil street views. In 1574, for the funeral of Cosimo I de'Medici in S. Lorenzo, Stradanus was probably involved in the painting of the skeletons and coats of arms. Furthermore, on the occasion of Francesco I de' Medici's funeral in S. Lorenzo in 1587, he painted the grisaille Francesco visiting his betrothed, Johanna of Austria, in Innsbruck; in 1588, for the entry of Ferdinando I de' Medici into Pisa, the canvas The burial of Pope Stephen I in the catacomb of Callixtus for the decoration of S. Stefano dei Cavalieri; in 1589, for the entry of Christina of Lorraine, the painting The retreat of the Turks after the siege of Vienna, as part of the decorations on the Canto de' Bischeri. Finally, in 1598, for the obsequies in memory of Philip II of Spain in S. Lorenzo, the grisaillc The siege and capture of Antwerp; for the same occasion he also provided the design for the grisaille The conquest of the Philippine islands, painted by his son Scipione. Stradanus' first commissions date from the start of his career in Florence, when he was working in Vasari's studio. As one of the master's assistants in decorating the Palazzo Vecchio, he had already gained ample experience in large-scale painting for the Medici. After leaving Vasari's studio in about 157 and setting up as an independent artist, Stradanus remained one of the leading Florentine artists who received commissions for official large-scale decors. He retained this status up to a venerable age, a sign of the appreciation he continued to enjoy in this field. Unfortunately none of Stradanus' decorative work has survived, with the exception of the canvas in Pisa. An impression of his skill in this field in conveyed by contemporary sources and the sketches, drawings, etchings and engravings presented in this article. This material clearly shows that in his long and productive life Stradanus was not only active as a painter of frescos and altarpieces and a designer of tapestries and engravings, but also played a prominent role at the court of the Medici as a painter of decorations.

In recent years, international research has turned with renewed attention to the Hungarian early renaissance and the art patronage of King Matthias Corvinus. indeed, it was in Hungary that italian renaissance art first appeared outside the italian peninsula. in 1476, he married Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinando d’aragona (Ferrante), who brought to Buda a love of books and music she had inherited from her grandfather, alfonso d’aragona. the work of Beatrice’s brother, giovanni d’aragona, previously known mainly from thomas Haffner’s monograph on his library (1997), is presented here from the viewpoint of his influence on Matthias’s art patronage. Ferrante’s children, alfonso, Beatrice, and giovanni were educated by outstanding humanist teachers. giovanni acquired many church benefices, and when Pope sixtus iv created him cardinal at the age of twenty-one, he made a dazzling entrance to rome. John was – together with Marco Barbo, oliviero Carafa, and Francesco gonzaga – one of the principal contemporary patrons of the College of Cardinals.On 19 april 1479 the pope named him legatus a latere to support King Matthias’s planned crusade against the Porte. giovanni went from rome to Hungary via Ferrara and Milan with two noted humanists in his retinue: the encyclopedist raffaele Maffei (volaterranus) and Felice Feliciano, bookbinder and collector of roman inscriptions. He spent much of his eight-month stay in Hungary with Matthias and Beatrice, no doubt exerting a significant influence on them, particularly in the collecting of books. Matthias appointed his brother-in-law archbishop of esztergom, the highest clerical office in Hungary. leaving Hungary in July 1480, giovanni returned to rome via venice and Florence, where lorenzo de’ Medici showed him the most valuable works of art in his palace. giovanni was appointed legate to Hungary again by sixtus iv in september 1483, and – together with Francesco Fontana – he stayed in Buda and esztergom between october 1483 and June 1484. the royal couple presented him with silver church vessels, a gold chalice, vestments, and a miter.Giovanni’s patronage focused on book collecting and building. He spent an annual sum of six thousand ducats on his library, and his acquisitions included contemporary architectural treatises by alberti and Filarete. it was around the time he was in Buda – between 1479 and 1481 – that the first large-format luxury codices were made for Matthias and Beatrice by the excellent Florentine miniaturist, Francesco rosselli. in rome, giovanni (and Francesco gonzaga) employed the Paduan illuminator gaspare da Padova, and his example encouraged Matthias and Beatrice to commission all’antica codices. anthony Hobson has detected a link between Queen Beatrice’s Psalterium and the livius codex copied for giovanni: both were bound by Felice Feliciano, who came to Hungary with the Cardinal. Feliciano’s probable involvement with the erlangen Bible (in the final period of his work, probably in Buda) may therefore be an important outcome of the art-patronage connections between giovanni and the king of Hungary.A passion for building was something else that giovanni shared with Matthias. He built a palace for himself in the monastery of Montevergine and another near Montecassino, of which he was abbot. He also built the villa la Conigliera in Naples. Matthias’ interest in architecture is much mentioned in antonio Bonfini’s history of Hungary, but only fragments of his monumental constructions, which included the renaissance villa Marmorea in the gardens to the west of the royal Palace of Buda, have survived.Giovanni and Matthias also had a connection through the famous Milan goldsmith Cristoforo Foppa (Caradosso), whose workshop was located in giovanni’s palace in rome. after his patron’s death in autumn 1485, he attempted to sell a – subsequently famous – silver salt cellar he had been unable to complete. it may also have been at the Cardinal’s recommendation that Matthias invited Caradosso to Buda for a several-month stay in 1489/90, during which he made silver tableware and possibly – together with three other lombardian goldsmiths who were there at the time – the lower part of the magnificent Matthias Calvary.Further items in the metalware category are our patrons’ seal matrices. My research has uncovered two smaller seals, both with the arms of the House of aragon at the center, that belonged to giovanni d’aragona. one, dating from 1473, is held in the archives of the Benedictine abbey of Montecassino. the other was made after he was created cardinal in late 1477 (it is held in Hungarian National archives). He also had an elaborate prelate’s seal matrix made in the early renaissance style, of which impressions survive on the documents in the archivio apostolico vaticano and the esztergom Primatial archive. at the center of the mandorla-shaped field, sitting on a throne, is the virgin Mary (Madonna lactans type) together with two intervening standing saint figures whose identification requires further research. Beneath it is the cardinal’s coat of arms crowned with a hat. it may date from the time of Caradosso’s first presumed stay in rome (1475–1479), suggesting him as the maker of the matrix, although to my knowledge there is no further evidence for this. the seals of King Matthias have been thoroughly studied, and the form and use of each type have been almost fully established.Giovanni d’aragona was buried in rome, in his titular church, the Dominican Basilica of santa sabina. Johannes Burckard described the funeral procession from the palace to the aventine in his Liber notarum. Matthias died in the vienna Burg, a residence he had only just taken up, in 1490. His body was taken in grand procession to Buda and subsequently to Fehérvár Basilica, the traditional burial place of Hungarian kings. the careers of giovanni and Matthias, full of military, political and ecclesiastical accomplishments, were thus both cut short. the great works of art they engendered, however, mark them out as highly influential patrons of renaissance art and humanist culture.

Nel 1640 Margherita Costa dedicò al granduca di Toscana Ferdinando II de’ Medici Flora feconda, un poema epico in onore della nascita del suo primo figlio. In quest’opera gli eroi Zeffiro e Flora (personaggi che raffigurano Ferdinando e la sua consorte Vittoria della Rovere) intraprendono un viaggio nel Mediterraneo fino all’oracolo di Giove per chiedere al dio il permesso di procreare. Il poema permise a Costa di mostrare la sua versatilità letteraria attraverso un adattamento innovativo di modelli offerti da figure come Ovidio e Ariosto. Il saggio esamina in particolare la rivisitazione di Costa del topos della donna abbandonata presente nella tradizione letteraria e musicale del lamento amoroso. Quando l’infante dei Medici morì dopo pochi giorni dal parto, la poetessa fu costretta a modificare il testo aggiungendo un decimo canto che prende la forma del lamento politico, un altro tipo di lamento allora in voga. L’unione di questi due sub-generi viene replicata nelle altre due successive opere pubblicate in quello stesso anno: una versione drammatica del poema intitolata La Flora feconda e la raccolta di poesie lugubri La selva di cipressi. In queste opere, come il saggio dimostra, Costa gioca con le convenzioni del lamento sia in termini di genere letterario-teatrale che di ruoli legati al gender dei personaggi.