Bronzino’s Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio [A Centennial Book, Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520375994

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BRONZINO'S

CHAPEL

IN THE PALAZZO

OF

ELEONORA

VECCHIO

CALIFORNIA

WALTER

HORN,

JAMES MARROW,

i ii

STUDIES

I N T H E H I S T O R Y OF A R T

Founding Editor General Editor

The Birth of Landscape Painting in China, by Michael Sullivan Portraits by Degas, by Jean Sutherland Boggs

HI

Leonardo da Vinci on Painting: A Lost Book (Libro A), by Carlo Pedretti

iv

Images in the Margins of Gothic Manuscripts, by Lilian M. C. Randall

v vi vu

The Dynastic Arts of the Kushans, by John M. Rosenfield A Century of Dutch Manuscript Illumination, by L. M.J. Délaissé George Caleb Bingham: The Evolution of an Artist, and A Catalogue Raisonné (two volumes), by E. Maurice Bloch

vin

Claude Lorrain: The Drawings—Catalog and Plates (two volumes), by Marcel Roethlisberger

ix x xi

Venetian Painted Ceilings of the Renaissance, by Juergen Schulz The Drawings of Edouard Manet, by Alain de Leiris Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics, by Herschel B. Chipp, with contributions by Peter Selz and Joshua C. Taylor

xii

After the Hunt: William Harnett and Other American Still Life Painters, 18701900, by Alfred Frankenstein

xiii

Early Netherlandish Triptychs: A Study in Patronage, by Shirley Neilsen Blum

xiv

The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought, by Ruth Mellinkpff

xv

Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: The Transi Tomb in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, by Kathleen Cohen

xvi xvii

Franciabigio, by Susan Regan

McKillop

Egon Schiele's Portraits, by Alessandra Comini

xviii

Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of Saint Louis: A Study of Styles,

xix

The Plan of St. Gall: A Study of the Architecture and Economy of, and Life in a

by Robert Branner Paradigmatic Carolingian Monastery [three volumes), by Walter Horn and Ernest Born xx xxi

French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries, by Jean Bony The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora, by Suzanne Lewis

XXII

xxiii xxiv xxv xxvi xxvii

The Literature of Classical Art: The Painting of the Ancients and A Lexicon of Artists and Their Works According to the Literary Sources, by Franciscus Junius (two volumes), edited by Keith Aldrich, Philipp Fehl, and Raina Fehl The Armor of Light: Stained Glass in Western France, 1250-1325, by Meredith Parsons Lillich Nineteenth-Century Theories of Art, by Joshua C. Taylor Corinthian Vase-Painting of the Archaic Period (three volumes), by D. A. Amyx Picasso's Guernica-. History, Transformations, Meanings, by HerschelB. Chipp Lovis Corinth, by Horst Uhr

xxvni

The Royal Image: Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France, 1274-1422, by Anne D. Hedeman

xxix xxx

Bronzino's Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio, by Janet Cox-Rearicf^ Masking the Blow: The Scene of Representation in Late Prehistoric Egyptian Art,

xxxi

by Whitney Davis The Forum of Trajan, by James Packer

DISCOVERY

1 11

SERIES

The Devil at Isenheim: Reflections of Popular Belief in Grünewald's Altarpiece, by Ruth Mellin!{off The Forgotten Hermitage of Skellig Michael, by Walter Horn, Jenny White Marshall, and Grellan D. Rourke

A CENTENNIAL

BOOK

One hundred booths published between 1990 and 1995 bear this special imprint of the University of California Press. We have chosen each Centennial Boo\ as an example of the Press's finest publishing and bookmaking traditions as we celebrate the beginning of our second century.

U N I V E R S I T Y OF C A L I F O R N I A

Founded in 1893

PRESS

BRONZINO'S CHAPEL OF ELEONORA IN THE PALAZZO VECCHIO

JANET C O X - R E A R I C K

UNIVERSITY

Berkeley

OF

CALIFORNIA

Los Angeles

Oxford

PRESS

University of C a l i f o r n i a Press Berkeley and L o s A n g e l e s , C a l i f o r n i a University of C a l i f o r n i a Press, L t d . Oxford, England © 1993 by T h e Regents of the University of C a l i f o r n i a L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s Cataloging-in-Publication Data C o x - R e a r i c k , Janet. Bronzino's C h a p e l of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio / Janet C o x - R e a r i c k . p.

cm. — (California studies in the history of

art ; 29) " A Centennial B o o k " — p . Includes bibliographical references and index. I S B N 0-520-07480-7 (alk. paper) 1. B r o n z i n o , A g n o l o , 1 5 0 3 - 1 5 7 2 — C r i t i c i s m and interpretation.

2. Bible—Illustrations.

3. Cappella di Eleonora (Palazzo vecchio) I. Title.

II. Series.

ND623.B8C68

1992

759.5—dc20

91 -26851

Printed and bound in Korea 9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

T h e paper used in this publication meets the m i n i m u m requirements of A m e r i c a n National Standard for Information S c i e n c e s — Permanence of Paper for Printed L i b r a r y Materials, A N S I Z39.48-1984.

@

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the contribution provided by the Art Bool( Fund of the Associates of the University of California Press, which is supported by a major gift from the Ahmanson Foundation. This publication has been supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency.

For Wiley

CONTENTS

L I S T OF ILLUSTRATIONS

xxiv

PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS PREFACE

xxvii

INTRODUCTION

Part I

xii

I

The Patron and Her Chapel

ONE

ELEONORA

TWO

THE

C H R O N O L O G Y OF T H E FRESCOES

THREE

THE

A L T A R P I E C E AND T H E C O M P L E T I O N

Part II

DI T O L E D O , D U C H E S S O F F L O R E N C E

Bronzino's Paintings in the Chapel

FOUR

THE

FRESCOES

FIVE

THE

ALTARPIECES

Part III

Devotional

94 145

Imagery in the Chapel

six

THE

ALTAR W A L L

190

SEVEN

THE

S T O R I E S OF M O S E S

EIGHT

THE

SAINTS OF T H E VAULT

213 238

22

54 OF T H E D E C O R A T I O N

74

Part IV NINE TEN

The Medicean Meaning of the Chapel Decoration H I S T O R Y , M Y T H , A N D P R O P A G A N D A IN C O S I M O DE' M E D I C I ' S E A R L Y A R T I M A G E R Y OF D Y N A S T Y A N D R U L E

260

ELEVEN

C O S I M O DE' M E D I C I AS A N O L D T E S T A M E N T H E R O

TWELVE

C O S I M O DE' M E D I C I , A N E W

THIRTEEN

MOSES

T H E P R O G R A M M E OF T H E C H A P E L

A P P E N D I X OF D O C U M E N T S L I S T OF A B B R E V I A T I O N S NOTES

327 347

349

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

417

I N D E X OF D O C U M E N T S C I T E D G E N E R A L INDEX

431

429

294 320

282

250

ILLUSTRATIONS

Unless otherwise noted, works are by Bronzino and locations are Florence.

PLATES

Following

pages 66 and

IJ8

Plate

i.

Dukt Cosimo de' Medici. Gallcria dcgli Uffizi

Plate

2.

Eleonora di Toledo. Prague, National Gallery

Plate

3.

Chapel of Eleonora, view to the altar

Plate

4.

Chapel of Eleonora, view to the entrance

Plate

5.

Chapel of Eleonora, vault

Plate

6.

Chapel of Eleonora (south wall), The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua

Plate

7.

Chapel of Eleonora (west wall), The Brazen Serpent

Plate

8.

Chapel of Eleonora (north wall), Moses Striding the Roc/{ and the Gathering of Manna Angels with a Chalice, Host, and Globe [Allori]

Plate

9.

Plate

10.

Chapel of Eleonora, altar (east) wall St. John the Baptist (from the Chapel of Eleonora). Malibu, California, J. Paul Getty Museum

Plate

11.

Lamentation (from the Chapel of Eleonora). Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts

Plate

12.

Chapel of Eleonora, King David and The Erythraean Sibyl

x 11

Plate

13.

Chapel of Eleonora, spandrel with Justice

Plate

14.

Chapel of Eleonora, Annunciation

Plate

15.

Modello for the vault of the Chapel of Eleonora. Frankfurt, Stâdelsches Kunstinstitut

Plate

16.

Chapel of Eleonora, St. Michael Fighting the Devil

Plate

17.

Chapel of Eleonora, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata

Plate

18.

Chapel of Eleonora, St. Jerome in Penitence

Plate

19.

Chapel of Eleonora, St. John the F.vangchst on Patmos

Plate

20.

Chapel of Eleonora, putto to the left of St. Michael

Plate

21.

Chapel of Eleonora, putto to the right of St. Michael

Plate

22.

Study for The Crossing of the Red Sea. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi

Plate

23.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Brazen Serpent, detail, figures on the right

Plate

24.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Brazen Serpent, detail, figures on the left

Plate

25.

Chapel of Eleonora, Moses Striding the Rock:, detail, lower section

Plate

26.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Gathering of Manna, detail, lower section

Plate

27.

Lamentation, Besançon, detail, holy women

Plate

28.

Lamentation, Besançon, detail, three men

Plate

29.

Lamentation, Besançon, detail, angels

Plate

30.

Chapel of Eleonora, Moses Appointing Joshua

Plate

31.

Lamentation, Besançon, detail, head of a holy woman

Plate

32.

Chapel of Eleonora, Moses Appointing Joshua, detail, woman to the right

Plate

33.

Joseph in Prison and the Pharaoh's Banquet (tapestry). Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale

x 111

FIGURES

Figure

i.

Anonymous, Agnolo Bronzino. (After Rau and Rastrelli)

Figure

2.

Francesco Salviati, Story of Camillus. Palazzo Vecchio, east and south walls of the Sala delle Udienze

Figure

3.

Niccolò Tribolo, Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus. Villa Castello

4

Figure

4.

Baccio Bandinelli, Monument to Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Piazza S. Lorenzo

5

Figure

5.

Bronzino, Salviati, and Pontormo, Story of Joseph (tapestries). Palazzo Vecchio, Sala de' Dugento

6

Figure

6.

Engraving of the choir of S. Lorenzo, 1598, showing frescoes by Jacopo da Pontormo. Vienna, Albertina

7

Figure

7.

Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus. Loggia dei Lanzi

8

Figure

8.

Giorgio Vasari, Du\e Cosimo de' Media with His Architects, Engineers, and Sculptors. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Cosimo

9

Figure

9.

Francesco Salviati,Deposition. Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce

10

Figure

10.

Christ in Limbo. Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce

11

Figure

11.

Allegory of Venus. London, National Gallery

12

Figure

12.

Palazzo Vecchio, plan of the second

Figure

13.

Benozzo Gozzoli, Procession of the Ma^/.Chapel, Palazzo Medici

14

Figure

14.

Jacopo da Pontormo, Capponi Chapel, S. Felicita, with the altarpiece of the

16

floor

13

Lamentation-Entombment and the Annunciation Figure

15.

Baccio d'Angelo, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, and Fra Mariano da Pescia, Palazzo Vecchio, Chapel of the Priors

17

Figure

16.

Giorgio Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Chapel of Duke Cosimo de' Medici

18

Figure

17.

Genealogy of the Medici family

24

Figure

18.

Giovanni Stradano, The Arrival of Eleonora di Toledo at Poggio a Calano. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Cosimo

29

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure

19.

Duke Cosimo de' Medici as Orpheus. Philadelphia Museum of Art

32

Figure

20.

Giovanni Stradano, Tribute to Duke Cosimo de' Medici in the Piazza Ducale. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Gualdrada

34

Figure

21.

Baccio Bandinelli, Eleonora di Toledo (bronze). Museo Nazionale del Bargello

36

Figure

22.

Duke Cosimo de'Medici.

38

Figure

23.

Eleonora di Toledo with Her Son Giovanni. Galleria degli Uffizi

39

Figure

24.

Book of Hours of Eleonora di Toledo, Annunciation with the Medici-Toledo Arms.

40

London, private collection

London, Victoria and Albert Museum Figure

25.

Giovanni Stradano, Duke Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo Receiving in the

41

Palazzo Ducale. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Cosimo Figure

26.

Bronzino (workshop), Eleonora di Toledo with Her Son Francesco. Pisa, Museo di S. Matteo

Figure

27.

Francesco Salviati, Triumph of Camillus, detail, Juno. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala delle Udienze

44

Figure

28.

Domenico Poggini, medal of Eleonora di Toledo with her impresa of the peahen with

44

43

its young. Museo Nazionale del Bargello Figure

29.

Figure

30.

Eleonora di Toledo. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie

47

Giovanni Antonio de' Rossi, Duke Cosimo de' Medici, Eleonora di Toledo, and their

48

children (cameo). Museo Nazionale del Bargello Figure

31.

Alessandro Allori and II Poppi, Eleonora dì Toledo with Spring and Summer. Palazzo

53

Vecchio, Studiolo of Francesco de' Medici Figure

32.

Camera Verde, view from the entrance to the Chapel of Eleonora with vault

58

decoration by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Palazzo Vecchio Figure

33.

Francesco Salviati, ceiling of the scrittoio of Eleonora di Toledo. Palazzo Vecchio

59

Figure

34.

Chapel of Eleonora, inscriptions on the doorframe

ß1

Figure

35.

Chapel of Eleonora, spandrel with Prudence

63

Figure

36.

Chapel of Eleonora, spandrel with Temperance

64

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure

37.

Chapel of Eleonora, spandrel with Fortitude

65

Figure

38.

Chapel of Eleonora [Allori], Angels with a Chalice, Most, and Globe

66

Figure

39.

Chapel of Eleonora, giornate of the vault

67

Figure

40.

Chapel of Eleonora, giornate of The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua

68

Figure

41.

Chapel of Eleonora, giornate of The Brazen Serpent

69

Figure

42.

Chapel of Eleonora, giornate of Moses Striding the Roc\and the Gathering of Manna

69

Figure

43.

Francesco Salviati, Lamentation (tapestry). Galleria degli Uffizi

83

Figure

44.

Bronzino (workshop), copy of the Lamentation altarpiece of the Chapel of Eleonora.

86

Parish church, Castrojeriz, Burgos Figure

45.

Bronzino, letter to Duke Cosimo de' Medici. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library

87

Figure

46.

Chapel of Eleonora, vault, detail of the Trinity

89

Figure

47.

Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo. S. Lorenzo

95

Figure

48.

St. Benedict Tempted in the Wilderness. S. Salvi

95

Figure

49.

Pietà with Angels (tabernacle). S. Casciano, Mercatalle

96

Figure

50.

Giorgio Vasari, vault of the Chapel of Duke Cosimo de' Medici. Palazzo Vecchio

97

Figure

51.

Raphael, Loggia di Psyche. Rome, Villa Farnesina

98

Figure

52.

Jacopo da Pontormo, studies for the vault of the Villa Careggi loggia. Gabinetto

99

Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

53.

Jacopo da Pontormo, studies for the vault of Villa Careggi loggia, detail, putto.

99

Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

54.

Jacopo da Pontormo, study for God the Father in the cupola of the Capponi Chapel.

100

Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

55.

Nativity. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts

102

Figure

56.

Study for the head of St. Jerome. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi

103

Figure

57.

Chapel of Eleonora, St. Jerome, detail of the head

103

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure

58.

Study for St. Michael. Paris, Musée d u Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins

104

Figure

59-

C h a p e l of Eleonora, seated putto

108

Figure

60.

C h a p e l of Eleonora, striding putto

109

Figure

61.

Michelangelo, n u d e above the Libyan Sibyl. Vatican, Sistine C h a p e l

110

Figure

62.

Study for the head of the p u t t o to the right of St. Michael. D r e s d e n , Staatliche

110

K u n s t s a m m l u n g e n , Kupferstichkabinett Figure

63.

C h a p e l of Eleonora, head of the p u t t o to the right of St. Michael

110

Figure

64.

Holy Family. Washington, National Gallery of Art, T h e Samuel H . Kress Collection

HI

Figure

65.

Niccolò Tribolo, Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus, detail, putti on the stem. Villa

112

Castello Figure

66.

Niccolò Tribolo, Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus, detail, putti on the base. Villa

l:

Castello

3

Figure

67.

St. Sebastian. L u g a n o , Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

114

Figure

68.

Hellenistic, t h e Belvedere Torso. Musei Vaticani

117

Figure

69.

Joseph Fleeing Potiphar's Wife (tapestry). Palazzo Vecchio, Sala de' D u g e n t o

119

Figure

70.

Michelangelo, Moses. R o m e , S. Pietro in Vincoli

121

Figure

7i-

Raphael, Parnassus. Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura

122

Figure

72-

R o m a n , the Idolino. Museo Archeologico

123

Figure

73-

Michelangelo, The Brazen Serpent. Vatican, Sistine C h a p e l

124

Figure

74-

C h a p e l of Eleonora, The Brazen Serpent, detail, head of a dead w o m a n

126

Figure

75-

Michelangelo, study of Venus. G a b i n e t t o Disegni e S t a m p e degli Uffizi

127

Figure

76.

Rosso Fiorentino, Moses and the Daughters of Jethro. Galleria degli Uffizi

128

Figure

77-

D o m e n i c o Beccafumi, The Punishment

129

Figure

78.

Hellenistic, N i o b i d . Galleria degli Uffizi

Figure

79-

C h a p e l of Eleonora, The Brazen Serpent, detail, heads of two w o m e n

of Korah. Pisa cathedral

ILLUSTRATIONS XV i i

130

!3!

Figure

80.

Study for the head of a woman in The Brazen Serpent. Paris, private collection

131

Figure

81.

Hellenistic, Dying Alexander. Galleria degli Uffizi

132

Figure

82.

Moses Striking the Rock, detail, head of a woman

133

Figure

83.

Study for the head of a woman in Moses Striking the Rock- Paris, Musée du Louvre,

133

Cabinet des Dessins Figure

84.

Study for two men drinking in Moses Striking the Rock- Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe

134

degli Uffizi Figure

85.

Moses Striking the Rock, detail, men in the foreground

135

Figure

86.

Benjamin Received by Joseph (tapestry). Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale

136

Figure

87.

Iacopo da Pontormo, study for Moses Receiving the Tables of the Law. Gabinetto

136

Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

88.

Michelangelo, Victory. Palazzo Vecchio, Salone dei Cinquecento

138

Figure

89.

Study for the nude in The Gathering of Manna. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli

138

Uffizi Figure

90.

Study for the nude in The Gathering of Manna. Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana

139

Figure

91.

Chapel of Eleonora, reconstruction of the first installation of the altar wall

146

Figure

92.

Marcantonio Raimondi, The Baptism of Christ (engraving)

148

Figure

93.

Dead Christ with the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene. Galleria degli Uffizi

150

Figure

94.

Pietro Perugino, Lamentation, Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina

151

Figure

95.

Andrea del Sarto, Lamentation, Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina

151

Figure

96.

Jacopo da Empoli after Jacopo da Pontormo, Lamentation. Certosa di Galluzzo

152

Figure

97.

Lamentation (without the lunette). Besançon, Musée des Beaux- Arts

152

Figure

98.

Michelangelo, Pietà. Vatican, St. Peter's

153

Figure

99.

Jacopo da Pontormo, Lamentation-Entombment.

Figure

100.

S. Felicita, Capponi Chapel

Baccio Bandinelli, study for a Lamentation with Duke Cosimo de'Medici and Eleonora di Toledo. Amherst, Mass., private collection

ILLUSTRATIONS XV i i i

154 158

Figure

IOI.

Baccio Bandinelli, study for The Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins

160

Figure

102.

Francesco Salviati, study for Justice Liberating Innocence. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffìzi

161

Figure

103.

Justice Liberating Innocence (tapestry). Palazzo Pitti

161

Figure

104.

Francesco Salviati, study for The Selling of Joseph. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi

162

Figure

105.

The Selling of Joseph (tapestry). Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale

162

Figure

106.

Francesco Salviati, study for the Arms of Duke Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum

163

Figure

107.

Allegory of the Dynasty of Duke Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo (tapestry). Palazzo Pitti

163

Figure

108.

Lamentation.

164

Figure

109.

Baccio Bandinelli, Dead Christ with Nicodemus. SS. Annunziata

Figure

110.

Perino del Vaga, study for The Preaching of St. John the Baptist. Vienna, Albertina

166

Figure

m.

Iacopino del Conte, The Preaching of St. John the Baptist. Rome, S. Giovanni Decollato

167

Figure

112.

Baccio Bandinelli, Dead Christ with an Angel. S. Croce

168

Figure

113.

Lamentation, Arts

169

Figure

114.

Baccio Bandinelli, Dead Christ with an Angel, detail, angel

169

Figure

115.

Baccio Bandinelli, Birth of the Virgin, detail, woman with child. Loreto, Santa Casa

170

Figure

116.

Baccio Bandinelli, Giovanni delle Bande Nere Receiving Prisoners, detail, women. Piazza S. Lorenzo

170

Figure

117.

Baccio Bandinelli, study of mourning women. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins

171

Figure

118.

Baccio Bandinelli, studies of three male heads. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

172

Figure

119.

Baccio Bandinelli, studies of male heads. Stockholm, National Museum

Accademia

detail, angel, heads of Christ and St. John. Besançon, Musée des Beaux-

ILLUSTRATIONS

165

'73

Figure

120.

Baccio Bandinelli, The Descent from the Cross. San Marino, Museo Nazionale

174

Figure

121.

Baccio Bandinelli, study for a Descent from the Cross. London, Katz Collection

175

Figure

122.

Donatello, Lamentation, detail, Joseph of Arimathea. S. Lorenzo

176

Figure

123.

Baccio Bandinelli, study for a Pietà. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins

177

Figure

124.

Study for the head of a holy woman. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi

181

Figure

125.

Lamentation, detail, angel and the Magdalene. Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts

182

Figure

126.

Reflectogram of the Lamentation, detail, nose and eyes of the Magdalene (Laboratoire des Musées de France)

183

Figure

127.

Reflectogram of the Lamentation, detail, nose and mouth of the Magdalene (Laboratoire des Musées de France)

183

Figure

128.

Chapel of Eleonora, Annunciate Virgin, detail, head

186

Figure

129.

Study for the Annunciate Virgin. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi

187

Figure

130.

Francesco Salviati, design for a ewer. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum

197

Figure

131.

Albrecht Dürer, Lamentation (woodcut)

198

Figure

132.

Marcantonio Raimondi, Lamentation (engraving)

199

Figure

133.

Francesco Salviati, Lamentation. Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina

202

Figure

134.

Portrait drawing of Pontormo, detail of the head. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi

204

Figure

135.

Alessandro Allori, Christ among the Doctors, detail, portraits of Pontormo, Bronzino, and Tomaso Manzuoli. SS. Annunziata

204

Figure

136.

Alessandro Allori, study for Christ in Limbo, detail, portraits of Pontormo and

205

Bronzino. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

137.

Alessandro Allori, Trinity. Chapel of St. Luke, SS. Annunziata

206

Figure

138.

Alessandro Allori, Christ in Limbo, detail, portrait of Bronzino with Moses and St. John the Baptist. S. Marco

207

Figure

139.

Anonymous, Agnolo Bronzino. Galleria degli Uffizi

208

ILLUSTRATIONS XX

Figure

140.

Christ in Limbo, detail, Bronzino as David. S. Lorenzo

208

Figure

141.

Enea Vico (engraving after Bandinelli), The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, detail, self-

210

portrait of Bandinelli. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

142.

Baccio Bandinelli, Self-Portrait, detail. Boston, Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum

210

Figure

143.

Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo, detail, portraits of Bronzino, Pontormo, and Allori. S. Lorenzo

211

Figure

144.

Sicolante da Sermoneta, The Gathering of Manna. Chapel of the Bastie d'Urfé

214

Figure

145.

Battista Franco, The Gathering of Manna. Pisa, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

215

Figure

146.

Early Christian sarcophagus, The Crossing of the Red Sea. Musei Vaticani

218

Figure

147.

The Crossing of the Red Sea. Rome, doors of S. Sabina

218

Figure

148.

Cosimo Rosselli, The Crossing of the Red Sea, and Sandro Botticelli, Moses in Egypt and

220

Midian. Vatican, Sistine Chapel Figure

149.

Perino del Vaga, The Crossing of the Red Sea. Galleria degli Uffizi

220

Figure

150.

Domenico Beccafumi, Moses Striding the Roc%. Siena cathedral

222

Figure

151.

Early Christian sarcophagus, Moses Striding the Roc^, detail, Moses and other

figures.

225

Musei Vaticani Figure

152.

Alessandro Allori, The Gathering of Manna and Moses Striding the Roct{. S. Maria

226

Novella Figure

153.

Alessandro Allori, study for The Gathering of Manna and Moses Striding the Roc/( and

227

The Last Supper. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

154.

Figure

155.

Titian, The Crossing of the Red Sea (woodcut). London, British Museum

230

Hieronymous Cock, engraving after a version of Bronzino's Crossing of the Red Sea and

231

Moses Appointing Joshua. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi Figure

156.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Crossing of the Red Sea, detail, the arrival of the Israelites

233

Figure

157.

Luca Signorelli, The Last Acts and Death of Moses, detail, Moses appointing Joshua.

236

Vatican, Sistine Chapel Figure

158.

Andrea della Robbia, Crucifixion. La Verna, Chapel of the Stigmata

ILLUSTRATIONS XX i

244

Figure

159.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata. S. Trinità, Sassetti Chapel

245

Figure

160.

Giovanni della Robbia, Lamentation. La Verna, Chapel of the Pietà

247

Figure

161.

Francesco Salviati, The Triumph of Camillus. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala delle Udienze

257

Figure

162.

Fra Angelico, Madonna and Saints. S. Marco

262

Figure

163.

(Attributed to) Francesco Maria Butteri, Madonna and Saints. Galleria degli Uffizi

262

Figure

164.

Jacopo da Pontormo, Maria Salviati and Cosimo de' Medici. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery

263

Figure

165.

Giulio Clovio, Eleonora di Toledo (miniature). Walbeck Abbey, Duke of Portland Collection

264

Figure

166.

Francesco da Sangallo, medal of Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Museo Nazionale del Bargello

265

Figure

167.

Carlo Portelli, Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Minneapolis Institute of Arts

267

Figure

168.

Coin of SS. John the Baptist and Cosmas. Museo Nazionale del Bargello

270

Figure

169.

Loggia dei Lanzi, detail of Prudence

273

Figure

170.

(After) Bronzino, Duke Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo. Erlanger Collection, Connecticut

275

Figure

171.

Study for the Medici-Toledo arms of the vault of the Chapel of Eleonora. Paris, Musée

277

du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins Figure

172.

Raphael and Giovanni da Udine, Loggia di Psyche, Villa Farnesina, detail, Mercury

281

with fruitful garlands Figure

173.

Vincenzo Danti, Dul(e Cosimo de' Medici as Joshua. SS. Annunziata, Chapel of St. Luke

284

Figure

174.

Pierino da Vinci, Duì(e Cosimo de' Medici as Patron of Pisa. Musei Vaticani

285

Figure

175.

Vincenzo Danti, The Brazen Serpent. Museo Nazionale del Bargello

285

Figure

176.

Jacob Blessing Joseph's Children (tapestry). Palazzo Pitti

293

Figure

177.

Benvenuto Cellini, medal with Moses Striking the Rock. Museo Nazionale del

299

Bargello Figure

178.

(After) Niccolò Tribolo, Aesculapius. Palazzo Medici

ILLUSTRATIONS

301

Figure

179.

Battista Franco, The Battle of Montemurlo with the Rape of Ganymede. Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina

304

Figure

180.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Crossing of the Red Sea, detail, drowning soldiers

306

Figure

181.

Filippino Lippi, angel with the Strozzi arms. S. Maria Novella, Strozzi Chapel

307

Figure

182.

Giorgio Vasari, Duk^e Cosimo de' Medici and the Prisoners of Montemurlo. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Cosimo

308

Figure

183.

Chapel of Eleonora, Moses Appointing Joshua, detail, portrait of Pierfrancesco Riccio

311

Figure

184.

(Attributed to) Francesco Salviati, Pierfrancesco Riccio. Prato, Palazzo Comunale

312

Figure

185.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua, detail, ewer and basin

317

Figure

186.

Bronzino (reworked?), study for a Holy Family. Frankfurt, Stàdelsches Kunstinstitut

317

Figure

187.

Christ in Limbo, detail, portraits of Gelli and Giambullari as Moses and Abraham. Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce

323

ILLUSTRATIONS XX 1 1 1

PHOTOGRAPH

CREDITS

Ashmolean M u s e u m , O x f o r d : Figs. 106, 130 A u t h o r : Figs. 17, 39—41, 49, 91 Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan: Fig. 90 Biblioteca Herziana, R o m e : Fig. 1 7 2 C h o f f e t , Besançon: Plates 10, 22, 28, 29, 31 Cliché des Musées Nationaux, Paris: Figs. 58, 83, 97, 1 0 1 , 1 1 7 , 123, 1 7 1 Cliché du Laboratoire des Musées de France: Figs. 126, 127 Collection of the J. Paul Getty M u s e u m , Malibu, California: Plate 1 1 Courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum: Fig. 24 Courtesy Robert B. Simon: F i g . 165 Fabbrica di S. Pietro in Vaticano: Fig. 98 F l a m m a r i o n , Paris: Fig. 144 Fonds Albertina, Vienna: Figs. 6, 1 1 0 Fototeca Berenson, Florence: Figs. 1, 3 - 5 , 2 1 , 65, 66, 72, 78, 88, 92, 109, 1 1 2 - 1 6 , 122, 125, 1 3 1 , 132, 147, 154, 157, 158, 160, 170, 1 7 5 , 186 Isabella Stuart G a r d n e r M u s e u m , Boston: F i g . 142 Metropolitan M u s e u m of Art, N e w York, Rogers F u n d , 1963: Fig. 1 1 8 Ministero Beni Culturali e Ambientali, R o m e : Figs. 5 1 , i n Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis: Fig. 167 Musei Vaticani: Figs. 64, 68, 7 1 , 73, 146, 148, 1 5 1 Museo Nazionale, San Marino: Fig. 120 M u s e u m of Fine A r t s , Budapest: Fig. 55 National Gallery, Prague: Plate 2 National Gallery of A r t , Washington, Samuel H . Kress Collection: Fig. 61 National Swedish A r t Museums, Stockholm: Fig. 1 1 9 Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome: Plate 33

XXIV

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia: Fig. 19 Pierpont Morgan Library, N e w York. 1346-7: Fig. 45 Private collection, Amherst, Massachusetts: Fig. 100 Private collection, Paris: Fig. 80 Quattrone, Florence: cover; Plates 1,3-9, 12-26, 30, 32; Figs. 34-42, 57, 59, 60, 63, 74, 79, 82, 85, 156, 180, 183, 185 Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees, T h e National Gallery, London: Figs. 11, 22 Soprintendenza per i beni ambientali, architettonici, artistici e storici, Pisa: Figs. 26, 145 Soprintendenza per i beni ambientali ed architettonici di Firenze e Pistoia: Figs. 47, 143 Soprintendenza per i beni artistici e storici di Firenze, Florence: Figs. 2, 7-10, 12-14, 48, 50, 52-54, 56, 69, 70, 75-77, 81, 84, 86, 87, 89, 93-96, 99, 102-5,

I0

155, 159, 1 6 1 - 6 3 , 166, 168, 169, 173, 174, 176-79, 181, 182, 184, 187 Sotheby's, London: Fig. 121 Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden: Fig. 62 Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin: Fig. 29 Städelsches Kunstinstitut, F r a n k f u r t (Kurt Haase Fotograf): Plate 16 Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano, Switzerland: Fig. 67 Virgilio Fotos, Burgos: Fig. 44 Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore: Fig. 164

xxv

20

> 23> 25> 27>

30—33, 43,

7> iq 8> I2 4> I 2 8, 129, 1 3 3 - 4 1 , 149, 150, 152, 153,

PREFACE

The decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora di Toledo in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, is a masterpiece of the art of Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572), painter to the Medici court in Florence in the sixteenth century. Indeed, as the only complex ensemble of frescoes and panels he painted, it could be deemed the central work of his career. It is also a primary monument of the religious painting of cinquecento Florence. Just as Bronzino's splendid portraits and erotic allegories established new modes of secular painting that expressed the ideals of midsixteenth-century court life, so his innovative chapel paintings transformed traditional biblical narratives and devotional themes according to a new aesthetic. The chapel is also the locus of the emerging personal imagery of its patron, Duke Cosimo I de' Medici (1519-1574), and its decorations adumbrate many of the metaphors of rule, as they have been called, that would be programmatically developed in his more overtly propagandistic later art. There has been no comprehensive, documented, and illustrated study of this central work of Florentine Renaissance art. It was the subject of a short article by Andrea Emiliani (1961) and of my own essays, one on Bronzino's preparatory studies for the decoration (1971) and two others on individual paintings in the chapel (1987, 1989). These were prolegomena to this full-scale study, in which the recently restored frescoes are also illustrated for the first time.

X X V 11

I began this book in 1986 at the Getty Center for Art History and the Humanities, whose staff and director, Kurt W. Forster, encouraged and assisted me. The Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York awarded me three grants in support of research. Further work on the project was carried out under the auspices of the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, the National Gallery of Art, to whose staff and dean, Henry A. Millon, I am deeply grateful. I completed the book at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti, Florence. Its director, Walter Kaiser, extended a warm welcome to me, and scholars associated with it contributed to my work: Candace Adelson, Karen-edis Barzman, Paul Barolsky, Margaret B. Haines, William Hood, Leatrice Mendelsohn, Michael J. Rocke, Patricia Rubin, David Rutherford, William B. Wallace, and Hellmut Wohl. S. J. Freedberg and John Pope-Hennessy have sustained my work on Florentine Renaissance art over the years, and I am happy to thank them yet again here. I also thank the staffs of the libraries, archives, and museums in which I have worked, particularly those in Florence: the Kunsthistorisches Institut, the Biblioteca Nazionale, and the Archivio di Stato. Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, director of the Galleria degli Uffizi and the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, helpfully supported my work at the Uffizi. At the Biblioteca Berenson and the Fototeca Berenson, Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi was always helpful. Thanks are also due to the Comune di Firenze for expediting photography and other work in the chapel. In Paris, at the Musée du Louvre, Catherine Goguel facilitated my work in many ways. Gino Corti was of great assistance in transcribing documents in Florence, and Paola Peruzzi also assisted with archival transcriptions. Daniella Dini discussed her late father's restoration of the chapel with me and made diagrams for me of the giornate of Bronzino's frescoes. Elizabeth Giansiracusa worked on the translations. Antonio Quattrone photographed the Chapel of Eleonora expressly for this book. Several exceptionally generous colleagues read parts or all of late drafts of the manuscript and made helpful suggestions: Lynette Bosch, Rona Goffen, Craig Hugh Smyth, and, especially, Patricia Rubin and Malcolm Campbell. For other assistance of various kinds, I wish to thank the following colleagues: William Barcham, Mary Bergstein, Suzanne Branciforte, David Alan Brown, Patricia F. Brown, William Connell, Alison Cross, Susan Flanagan, Robert Gaston,

P R E F A C E

X X V 1 1 1

Marcia B. Hall, Detlef Heikamp, James Holderbaum, Marilyn A . Lavin, Giovanna L a z z i , James Marrow, Peter Meller, Ruth Mellinkoff, Nicolas Penny, Elizabeth Pilliod, Olga Raggio, David Rosand, Robert B. Simon, Yvonne Szafran, Roger Ward, Jack Wasserman, Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, and Donald Weinstein. I also acknowledge with pleasure the contributions of Deborah Kirshman and Stephanie Fay who, as fine arts editor and copy editor, respectively, provided encouragement and helpful criticism. A n d I thank Pete Goldie for his computer expertise and assistance with the index. My greatest debt is to my husband, H. Wiley Hitchcock, whose linguistic and editorial acumen were the least part of his contribution to this book, which I lovingly dedicate to him. J.C-R. Villa I Tatti November 1990 and July 1992

PREFACE

X X I X

E cominciandomi da i principali e più vecchi, dirò prima d'Agnolo detto il Bronzino, pittore fiorentino veramente rarissimo e degno di tutte le lodi.

(And beginning with the most important and the oldest, I shall speaksfirstof Agnolo, called Bronzino, a Florentine painter truly most rare and worthy of all praise.)

— G I O R G I O

VASARI,

LE

VITE,

1568

INTRODUCTION

When Vasari was completing the second edition of his Lives of the Artists in the mid-1560s, after the death of Michelangelo, he added a new chapter on living artists. Bronzino (Fig. 1), who Vasari says was among the oldest of them, was given pride of place and the longest account.1 As Vasari intuited, Bronzino turned out to be the last great painter of the Florentine Renaissance. During the central years of his career, from the late 1530s through the 1550s, Bronzino developed a personal style in a prodigious series of portraits (on which his reputation has always been largely based), altarpieces, and allegories that were exemplars for much of later sixteenth-century Florentine painting. He was also the most sophisticated artist to embody in Florence the "stylish style," the highly self-conscious and elegant manner (also known as the Maniera) that was the dominant mode of late Renaissance Florentine painting and sculpture in the 1540s and 1550s.2 His decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora is the first major example in Florence of Maniera painting. Michelangelo's work before his departure for Rome in 1534 exercised a formative influence on the development of Maniera in Florence: his sculptures for the Medici tombs in the New Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, his Victory (made for the Tomb of Julius II; see Fig. 88), the Noli me tangere and Venus and Cupid cartoons (both painted by Jacopo da Pontormo), and the finished black chalk presentation draw-

1

FIGURE I.

Anonymous, Agnolo Bronzino. (After Rau and Rastrelli).

ings (see Fig. 75). But elements of the stylish style had also appeared in the late 1520s and 1530s: in Florence, in the painting of Bronzino's contemporaries, such as his master, Pontormo; in Rome, in the art of Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino, Giulio Romano, and Perino del Vaga; and in Siena and Pisa, in Domenico Beccafumi's works. A new style in mural decoration was also explored in Rome in the frescoes of the Oratory of S. Giovanni Decollato (1538-41), where Francesco Salviati's Visitation and Jacopino del Conte's Preaching of St. John the Baptist (see Fig. HI) exemplify the characteristic tendency of these years toward an elegant, self-conscious, and artificial manner. In Florence in the 1530s, the major painters besides Pontormo and Bronzino were Ridolfo Ghirlandaio and, from a younger generation, Battista Franco and Vasari; the most prominent sculptors were Baccio Bandinelli and Niccolò Tribolo. All (except Bronzino) had been in the service of the first Florentine duke, Alessandro de' Medici (1511/12-1537). Many of them contributed in 1536 to the festival apparati (decorations) for the entry into Florence of Charles V and for Ales-

I N T R O D U C T I O N

FIGURE 2.

Francesco Salviati, Story of Camillus. Palazzo Vecchio, east and south walls of the Sala delle Udienze.

sandro's marriage to Margaret of Austria, lost paintings and sculptures that must have been a showcase of Florentine art.3 Bronzino's decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora belongs to the next phase of Florentine sixteenth-century painting, which was suddenly consolidated by the extensive art patronage of Cosimo de' Medici after his election in 1537 as duke of Florence. The team assembled in 1539 for his wedding apparato (modeled after Alessandro's) was directed by Tribolo and Aristotile da Sangallo, and it included many of the artists who had been patronized by the first duke, along with Bachiacca, Salviati, and Bronzino. The major commissions that followed in the early 1540s, all more or less contemporary with the chapel decoration, make it clear that the Maniera was favored and nurtured at the court of Duke Cosimo. The most important frescoes were Salviati's Stories of Camillus in the Sala delle Udienze (audience hall) in the Palazzo Vecchio (Fig. 2) and Pontormo's lost loggia decorations at Villa Castello, which were part of a grandiose scheme initiated in 1537 for the embellishment of the villa and its gardens under the direction of Tribolo, who

I N T R O D U C T I O N

3

FIGURE 3.

Niccolò Tribolo, Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus. Villa Castello.

designed the Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus (Fig. 3) and other garden sculptures there. The other major sculptural projects of the early 1540s were due to Bandinelli, then firmly ensconced in Cosimo's service, who worked on a monument to the duke's father, Giovanni delle Bande Nere (Fig. 4), as well as on Cosimo's udienza in the Sala Grande (as the Sala dei Cinquecento was known) in the Palazzo Vecchio. Of the artists active under Alessandro, only Vasari had not yet entered the circle of Cosimo's court artists. Around 1540, however, his style changed along with that of his contemporaries, and he painted his first Maniera altarpieces, the Immaculate Conception for SS. Apostoli (Galleria degli Uffizi) and The Descent from the Cross (Camaldoli, Archicenobio).

I N T R O D U C T I O N

4

INTRODUCTION

5

A group of subsequent commissions from the mid- to later 1540s includes an ambitious collaborative project, begun in 1545, that epitomizes the Maniera in Florence: the Story of Joseph tapestry cycle in the Sala de' Dugento in the Palazzo Vecchio (Fig. 5), designed mainly by Bronzino, but with contributions by Pontormo and Salviati. And in 1546 Pontormo began a great fresco cycle in the choir of the Medici church of S. Lorenzo (Fig. 6). Unfortunately, Pontormo's work has been destroyed, but his many drawings for the project suggest the highly personal and eccentric style of the cycle (see Fig. 87). During the same period, Benvenuto Cellini (just returned from France in 1545) received a commission for the Perseus in the Loggia dei Lanzi (Fig. 7), and Bandinelli in 1547 was asked to accomplish

INTRODUCTION

6

FIGURE 5

(opposite).

Bronzino, Salviati, and Pontormo, Story of Joseph (tapestries).

Palazzo Vecchio, Sala de' Dugento. FIGURE 6.

E n g r a v i n g of the choir of S. Lorenzo, 1598, showing frescoes by Jacopo da Pontormo. Vienna, Albertina.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

7

FIGURE 7.

Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus. L o g g i a dei Lanzi.

the sculptural transformation of the choir of the Duomo, an aborted project for which he executed, among other marbles, the monumental Dead Christ with an Angel (now S. Croce; see Fig. 112). The ambience of unusual competitiveness in which Duke Cosimo's artists vied for these court commissions is epitomized in Vasar i 's Du\e Cosimo de' Medici with His Architects, Engineers, and Sculptors (Fig. 8). Though painted in 1559, after the period with which we are concerned here, this work gives a vivid idea of the artists of Cosimo's court vis-à-vis their Medici patron and one another.4 There is no similar homage in this room to Bronzino and the duke's other painters, rivals whom Vasari probably did not wish to portray, but Vasari (recently made capomaestro of the works at the Palazzo) included himself with the architects, pre-

I N T R O D U C T I O N

8

F I G U R E 8.

Giorgio Vasari, Duke Cosimo de' Medici with His Architects, Engineers, and Sculptors. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Cosimo.

senting the scene to the spectator in the front plane. Furthermore, the most prominent artists in the w o r k (the three in classical garb w h o are closest to the d u k e — Battista del Tasso, Tribolo, and Giovanni Battista da San Marino) were all dead; Vasari's real rivals, such as Bandinelli, Cellini, and Bartolommeo A m m a n n a t i , all in contemporary dress, are crowded uncomfortably in the background of the tondo. T h e activities of the duke's private secretary, later majordomo, Pierfrancesco Riccio (1499-1564), encouraged competition among the artists in Cosimo's service. Riccio, responsible for most of the court's commissions, 5 gathered around himself a clique of artists dependent on him for favors. H e was also a priest and was portrayed in his clerical robes about 1550 in a portrait attributed to Salviati (see Fig. 184).6

I N T R O D U C T I O N

9

FIGURE

9.

Francesco Salviati, Deposition. Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce.

Sculptors keenly sought commissions for the monuments to the Medici family that the duke needed for political purposes. For example, Bandinelli was awarded the Giovanni delle Bande Nere monument in 1540 after competing for it with Tribolo. Much later, Bandinelli competed with Ammannati for the monumental Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza della Signoria, which Ammannati carried out in 1565. Similarly, Pontormo and Salviati competed in 1546 for the major Florentine fresco project of the decade, the S. Lorenzo choir. Riccio gave it to Pontormo, to the consternation of Salviati, who soon left for Rome. Pontormo, Bronzino, and Salviati all vied in the mid-1540s for a commission to design cartoons for the Story of Joseph tapestries. About the same time, Salviati designed a Lamentation tapestry for Duke Cosimo (see Fig. 43) that was clearly intended to be

I N T R O D U C T I O N

FIGURE

IO.

Christ in Limbo. Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce.

compared with Bronzino's just-completed altarpiece for the Chapel of Eleonora (see Plate n ) ; and according to gossip in a letter of November 1550 from Vincenzo Borghini in Florence to Vasari in Rome, Bronzino was not above improving his work after seeing that of his rivals. Borghini reports that when Vasari's altarpiece for Gismondo Martelli was unveiled in S. Lorenzo, Bronzino "ha fatto un gran ritoccamento, anzi pur mutamento nelle sue tavole" (did a lot of retouching, or rather making real changes, in his paintings).7 The competitiveness of this generation of painters reached its apogee in the rivalry between Bronzino and Salviati, each of whom designed an altarpiece for a chapel in S. Croce: Salviati's Deposition of 1548 for the Dini Chapel (Fig. 9) and Bronzino's Christ in Limbo of 1552 for the Zanchini Chapel opposite it (Fig. io).8

INTRODUCTION

FIGURE

I I.

Allegory of Venus. London, National Gallery.

Bronzino was extraordinarily successful in competing for commissions, gaining the confidence of the duke and his advisers as early as 1539. He adapted his virtuoso painting technique and powers of literary invention to the special requirements of his patron, who needed official and private portraits, sophisticated allegories, devotional works, and religious narrative cycles alike. Before the advent of Vasari at the court in 1555, Bronzino took the lead in most of the duke's decorative projects. Cosimo turned to him in 1543 for state portraits of himself (Plate 1), his wife Eleonora di Toledo (Plate 2), and later his children. When the need arose for Cosimo to present prestigious diplomatic gifts, Bronzino's works were chosen; the Allegory of Venus (Fig. 11), for example, was given to King Francis I of France. 9

INTRODUCTION

FIGURE 1 2 .

1. Sala di Cerere (Room of Ceres)

Palazzo Vecchio, plan of the second floor.

13. Sala di Ester (Room of Esther)

2. Sala di Opi (Room of Opi)

14. Sala di Penelope (Room of Penelope)

3. Sala di Giove (Room of Jupiter)

15. Sala di Gualdrada (Room of Gualdrada)

4. Sala di Ercole (Room of Hercules)

16. Entrata (entrance to the apartment of Eleonora di Toledo)

5. Terazza di Saturno (Terrace of Saturn)

17. Cappella dei Priori (Chapel of the Priors)

6. fassagio (passageway)

18. Salotta (reception room)

7. Sala degli Elementi (Room of the Elements)

19. Sala di lavoro; terazza scoperta dei bambini

8. Coridorio (corridor)

(workroom; children's open terrace)

9. Studiolo di Eleonora (Study of Eleonora di Toledo)

20. Sala del Mappamondo (Room of the Maps of the World)

10. Camera Verde (Green Room)

21. Cancelleria (chancellor's room)

11. Cappella di Eleonora (Chapel of Eleonora di Toledo)

22. Sala dei Gigli (Room of the Lilies)

12. Sala delle Sabine (Room of the Sabines)

23. Sala delle Udienze (audience hall)

It was Bronzino who was selected in 1540 to execute the young dukes first major painting commission in his new residence, the former Palazzo de' Signori, now called the Palazzo Vecchio 10 —the decoration of his wife's private chapel, known as the Chapel of Eleonora. This small private chapel, approximately four meters square, is located on the second floor of the palace (Fig. 12, no. 11). It was entirely decorated by Bronzino in 1540-45 (Plates 3-4). In the vault are the frescoes St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, St. Jerome in Penitence, St. John the Evangelist on Patmosy and St. Michael Fighting the Devil, in the spandrels are the Cardinal Virtues (Plate 5). Below, on the entrance and lateral walls, are frescoes of the story of Moses: The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua occupies the south wall (Plate 6); The Brazen Serpent is on the west, or entrance, wall (Plate

INTRODUCTION

3

FIGURE 13.

Benozzo Gozzoli, Procession of the Magi. Chapel, Palazzo Medici.

7); on the north wall is Moses Striding the Roc\ and the Gathering of Manna, with a sopraporta (overdoor), Angels with a Chalice, Host, and Globe (Plate 8), added later by Bronzino's pupil Alessandro Allori. Opposite the entrance is the east, or altar, wall, which is dominated by Bronzino's Lamentation

and

(Plate 9). These are replacements for the original altar paintings, the

Annunciation Lamentation,

now in Besançon, based on the same cartoon (Plate 11), with St. John the Baptist, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Plate 10), and St. Cosmas, which is lost. The Chapel of Eleonora was the first painted chapel, private or public, commissioned by the Medici in the sixteenth century, and there are no earlier Medici

I N T R O D U C T I O N 1

4

chapels similar in type except the chapel in the Palazzo Medici (Fig. 13). Other chapels commissioned by the family in the quattrocento (mostly in public locations) had been embellished minimally and traditionally, with only a painted or sculptured altarpiece. For example, the chapel of 1453 at Villa Cafaggiolo had Alessio Baldovinetti's altarpiece The Madonna and Saints, and the Chapel of the Novitiates in S. Croce had an altarpiece of the same subject painted about 1445 by Filippo Lippi (both now in the Galleria degli Uffizi; Lippi's picture is replaced in S. Croce by Andrea della Robbia's sculptured altar). But the Palazzo Medici chapel, built by Michelozzo in 1459, was lavishly decorated for Cosimo il Vecchio and Piero de' Medici with frescoes of the Procession of the Magi by Benozzo G o z z o l i and an altarpiece by Filippo Lippi (copy; original in Berlin, Staatliche Museen). This ensemble might have suggested ways of achieving the elaborate display on an intimate scale that Cosimo and Eleonora seem to have desired for the chapel in their new palace. T h e earlier chapel, like Eleonora's, is small, with the entrance opposite the altar, a low ceiling, and space on the walls for only a single zone of frescoes. (It differs from Eleanora's chapel in plan, having an apse with a freestanding altar and altarpiece, as was traditional in the quattrocento.) Perhaps most important, however, the domestic location of the earlier chapel had made it possible for the Medici (still only de facto rulers of the Florentine republic) to commission a decoration depicting themselves as the Magi accompanied by an entourage featuring portraits of contemporaries. A work so overtly celebratory o f their rule would have been inappropriate in a more public location. Another important Florentine precedent for Eleonora's chapel, from the artist's rather than the patron's point of view, was the Capponi Chapel of 1525-28 at S. Felicita (Fig. 14), decorated by Pontormo with the assistance of Bronzino, w h o painted two of the Evangelist tondi in the spandrels. This experience must have acquainted Bronzino with the problems of inventing a decorative scheme for a small chapel with a Lamentation altarpiece, frescoed walls (although the Capponi Chapel has only one, with the Annunciation), and a vault frescoed with monumental figures. Bronzino adapted certain features of this chapel for Eleonora's. T h e Palazzo de' Signori already had a usable Cappella di Palazzo, as it was called. This was the Chapel of the Priors (Fig. 12, no. 17), located on the second floor between the Sala delle Udienze (the duke's reception hall) and an anteroom to Eleonora's apartment." It had been built by Baccio d'Agnolo and decorated by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio in 1511-14 at the behest of the recently reinstated Medici

INTRODUCTION

r5

FIGURE 14.

Jacopo da Pontormo, Cappom Chapel, S. Felicita, with the altarpiece of the Lamentation-Entombment and the Annunciation.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

FIG URE 15.

Baccio d ' A n g e l o , Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, and F r a Mariano da Pescia, Palazzo Vecchio, Chapel of the Priors.

(Fig. 15). Its frescoed decoration is conventional in subject, with the Trinity, apostles, and angels in the vault compartments, St. John the Baptist (patron of Florence) and an Annunciation on the wall opposite the altar, and Fra Mariano da Pescia's altarpiece The Madonna with SS. John and Elizabeth. We know that Cosimo and his family continued to use it: a letter from Riccio describes the Medici child ren attending Mass there in 1542; another letter indicates that it was the setting for the ceremonial entrance of Cosimo's son Giovanni into the priesthood in 1550.12 Eleonora's chapel evidently served a function different from that of the Cappella di Palazzo (and, before it, the Palazzo Medici chapel). These chapels served

I N T R O D U C T I O N

17

FIGURE 16.

G i o r g i o Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Chapel of Duke Cosimo de' Medici.

the entire Medici family, but Eleonora's chapel was personal and it was p r i v a t e — located in her own apartments. (See Fig. 16 for the chapel Vasari decorated for D u k e Cosimo in 1558.) Questions regarding not only the function but the patronage, meaning, and reception of the Chapel of Eleonora must be raised. W h y was this private space given priority in 1540 as one of the first architectural and decorative projects undertaken by the ducal family in their new home? H a d Eleonora, a Spanish noblewoman w h o was uncomfortable in Italian, perhaps requested from Cosimo a chapel for private devotions in Spanish with her entourage? Or was it in some sense a wedding gift from the duke to his bride of one year?

I N T R O D U C T I O N

We can ask further questions about the subjects Bronzino was commissioned to paint in the chapel. Its altarpiece, the Lamentation, might be considered suitable for the private chapel of a duchess, but what are we to make of episodes from the story of Moses, of the six male saints (four on the vault, two in the altar wings), and of the Cardinal Virtues—all more suitable to the duke? Why is there so little pointed reference to Eleonora herself or to female saints who might logically be associated with her? The rooms near the chapel that Vasari decorated for the duchess in 1561-62 (see Fig. 12, nos. 12-15),

contrast, are distinctly feminine:

each is dedicated to a heroine from the historical or legendary past—Penelope and the Sabine women from antiquity, Esther from the Old Testament, and Gualdrada from Florentine medieval times.13 These questions lead to others about the Medicean meanings related to Duke Cosimo's personal imagery in Bronzino's paintings in the chapel. Who, if anyone, among the duke's circle of humanists and literati would have aided Bronzino in devising the programme for the chapel? And who besides Eleonora and her family and retinue would have been permitted to hear Mass there? Who, in short, were the ideators of the Chapel of Eleonora, and who constituted the audience for Bronzino's paintings there? In attempting to address these and other questions (only some of which can be answered because of the paucity of contemporary evidence), I have approached the decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora from several complementary points of view: Part 1 begins with a chapter about the chapel's patron, Eleonora di Toledo, on whom little has been written. It then establishes the historical background for Bronzino's chapel paintings in the context of Duke Cosimo's decoration of the Palazzo in the 1540s and the documentary basis for the chronology of the Story of Moses frescoes and the altarpiece of the Lamentation. Material supporting these conclusions is gathered in an Appendix of Documents. Part 2 deals with the style of the paintings in relation to Bronzino's oeuvre, his visual sources, and the work of other painters and sculptors working in mid-cinquecento Florence. It also considers how the chapel decoration might relate to contemporary writing about art. Part 3 is concerned with what could be called the devotional programme of the chapel paintings—their subjects, their typology, and the contemporary focus that Bronzino gave to their traditional religious imagery. And Part 4 places the paintings in cultural context of Duke Cosimo's court and his highly politicized art, revealing the chapel decoration to be a celebration of Cosimo's rule and of the Medici dynasty he had established with Eleonora di Toledo.

INTRODUCTION

19

Prima di tutte [le belle donne] a voi saggia Leonora Di questa Alma Città Donna et Regina Sposa Gentil di quel che i Toschi honora.

(To you, foremost among all [beautiful women], prudent Eleonora, Lady and Queen of this Noble City, Gentle bride of him whom Tuscans honor.) —NICCOLÒ

MARTELLI,

1539

CHAPTER ONE

ELEONORA

DI T O L E D O , D U C H E S S

OF

FLORENCE

The Marriage of Eleonora di Toledo and Dut(e Cosimo de' Medici The words of this chapter's epigraph by the Medici court poet Martelli praise Eleonora on her arrival in Florence as the bride of Duke Cosimo.1 Eleonora was the sixth child and second daughter of Don Pedro di Alvarez di Toledo, brother of the powerful duke of Alba and viceroy of Naples under Emperor Charles V from 1532 until his death in 1553.2 She was born at Sebeto on 11 January 1519, but little is known of her early life.3 As a seventeen-year-old she was noticed by the young Cosimo de' Medici when he visited Naples in the train of his cousin Duke Alessandro. Cosimo, Eleonora's bridegroom, was the son of the famous condottiere Giovanni delle Bande Nere and Maria Salviati, a niece of Pope Leo X (Giovanni de' Medici), who belonged to different branches of the Medici family (Fig. 17). Their only child, he united the two sides of the family. Cosimo was unexpectedly elevated to the Florentine dukedom in January 1537 after the murder of Alessandro and at the Battle of Montemurlo in August of the same year consolidated his claim to rule Florence. It was then deemed essential that he marry and produce an heir to secure the rule of the Medici, there being no eligible descendants after Alessandro's demise. It was also desirable that Cosimo take a wife who would enhance his alliance with Charles V, to whom he owed his title duke of Florence and who was effectively his feudal lord. Cosimo's first choice, Margaret of Austria, was expedient, for she was Charles's daughter (even if illegitimate) and the

w i d o w of Alessandro. T h e emperor, however, chose to give Margaret to Ottavio Farnese, a nephew of the new pope, Paul I I I . D u r i n g the year 1538, Giovanni Bandini, Cosimo's ambassador at the imperial court, pursued other options. Writing to Cosimo in November, he reviewed the possibilities for a suitable w i f e in Portugal, Germany, Flanders, and C a l a b r i a — one w h o would be not only an advantageous match politically but also "bella, nobile, riccha, et giovane" (beautiful, noble, rich, and young). 4 By 23 November Bandini had obtained the emperor's approval for Cosimo's marriage to D o n Pedro's eldest daughter, Isabella. Cosimo, however, apparently attracted to Eleonora when he saw her in Naples in 1536, insisted on her as his bride: Intendo che il Viceré di Napoli ha spedito costà per impetrare da S. M.tà di appiccarmi addosso la sua prima figliuola. Non credo che quella permetta cosa tanto sproportionata et disconveniente: che quando altrimenti fussi, confesserei ingenuamente di tenermi molto male satisfatto di tal cosa, iudicando che al prefato Viceré debbi parere assai di darmi la seconda.5 (I understand that the viceroy of Naples has written to beseech his majesty [Charles V] to palm his elder daughter off on me. I don't believe that he will permit something so outrageous and disagreeable. Were I to think otherwise, I would honestly confess to consider myself very dissatisfied, judging that you should present matters to the above-mentioned viceroy adequately enough so that he gives me the second daughter.)

Eleonora seems to have fulfilled all the conditions set forth for Cosimo's wife. T h e portraits Bronzino painted of her, especially the first, which portrays her at the age of twenty-four (Plate 2), show an attractive brown-eyed young w o m a n with regular features and light chestnut hair. Contemporaries commented on her beauty. Cosimo's secretary, Jacopo de' Medici, remarked on her "ragionevol belleza" (remarkable beauty) at the time of her marriage, and in the letters of her intimates she is described as "bella, fresca, e colorita come una rosa" (beautiful, fresh, with the complexion of a rose).6 T h e conditions of the marriage were negotiated, Cosimo m a k i n g a good bargain with D o n Pedro, 7 and the marriage (by proxy) took place on 29 March 1539 in Naples, with Jacopo de' Medici and L u i g i Ridolfi, the representatives of D u k e

23

FIGURE

17.

Genealogy of the Medici family.

C O S I M O PATER PATRIAE (1389-1464) Concessina dei B a r d i uca ¿ tlU-cn

mû

Í tm MM- mû m*0ù>ra aflato. I t Si ueJuti ÁilmJrj-e ¿¡yW, e cojt uniucrjale i , cíe ta jume alrzMri un i j f j t j i i t e LIt af cicla, -"Vitó djuojLriese LJenycre. i^üütímm/Jryf,¿rDÚJer eyji,'¿u* CjJtí-ru^e ^JeLe,ik,Jrx [ipu¿í ú> Jcr Mu-*VA, r dúfcrt ^TÚU^.M -rene JLtl l' ultimo á mutcLnc i müv\ urbiwnj . cíe je rnu* om ¿¿ lene-, r U L*rtá ^ come ji j«JerJrvut Mr**** ¿rxjcJií,^ e JtL ,/ '.riíAlífrí- J1"' A . Mrdtci me £t ¿efo. cíe ínl Jalan-e jmff ím urré JiUl , lum ' Jere, cíe ú> /tone jtfert, cíe juahJc a V ¿lS- utrra. eUA4¿on¿ A JeruíJ-Jt Ájudjoco, cíe U uajlic, e f f a juut mi rifor.4* id tUíffltrO JtLOl e /tu rtÁfnx. h^orÚL JcÍIa .ma jMtáfrán*. [A juab ú> m cra^JromtsH}, cíe uika JW> jru'j'Ctuej**. efiu IcrcjtÁ max, e£ L . c o j a , ie Jcjútere Jút e f e U- uiái, e tn £tut¿v «u majua Ji jejjuitnrti h,Hxudx. ¿c üutéJuri, c Jarfac a jad íjuUo cíe JTUUUA. /Ltlía. Cafid-la. ¿¿TOLUZQJ, ÍC^UAÍ* CMJC crcM cf¿. ^ S-Sírouerr*. *L ju* rtter/u>Jorni£z, c me n¿>* dtjídsrcso, eJb-an£o xfer uirb , e. aJonu-h e f e putt. & Jb judc J r c j f o t¿tiro ¿jtore. jLUo, cSt. c feftcién., £ can cptt'mx* dcjítézc rdtterejiQxL ajteJc dt' futlU-W** tnjikocchüU» £l¿¿> la ¿c/ol Jt Ttorarz*. aílt I'MtibXcL tí ¿ t Itf"1* J^J^L • ítems/***e déte A ' - -ti ~3t ír> z.:

FIGURE 45.

Bronzino, letter to Duke Cosimo de' Medici. N e w York, Pierpont Morgan Library.

Probably in response to a request from Cosimo at about this time, Bronzino returned to work on the chapel altarpiece. On 19 June (doc. 22), wood was ordered for "addornamenti e una tavola per uno altare nella Cappella in Camera Verde" (frames and a panel for an altar in the chapel of the Camera Verde).46 The new altar wings were not painted immediately, however, and in the spring of 1564 Cosimo must have pressed Bronzino again. In response to this request Bronzino wrote to the duke on 15 April (doc. 24; Fig. 45). After thanking him for a requested payment and acknowledging that his salary would no longer be paid by the duke, Bronzino assures his patron that he will finish the Nativity altarpiece

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for the C h u r c h o f the Cavalieri in Pisa.47 H e then tells C o s i m o that he will finish the parts of the chapel decoration that are lacking, promising to complete the w o r k before the duke's return to Florence:

E in tanto non manco di seguitare la Tavola de' Cavalieri, e dar fine à quel tanto che manca nella Cappella di Palazzo, le quali cose credo che V. E. I. trouerrà al suo ritorno fornite.

(Meanwhile I am continuing to work on the altarpiece for the Cavalieri and completing what remains to be done in the palace chapel, so Your Excellency will find the work completed on your return.)

O n the n e w flanking panels of the second Lamentation

B r o n z i n o painted the

A n g e l o f the A n n u n c i a t i o n and the V i r g i n A n n u n c i a t e (see Plate 14), w h i c h w e already k n o w about f r o m Vasari's description o f the chapel (in the 1568 edition o f the Vite) as it appeared in the mid-1560s. T h e y were duly completed three m o n t h s later. O n 15 July 1564 payment was m a d e to D i o n i g i di Matteo for frames for " u n a N u n t i a t a " and " u n o A n g e l o " for the " C a p p e l l a della C a m e r a V e r d e " (doc. 25),48 and on 16 September payment was m a d e for gilding these frames, at w h i c h time the paintings were presumably installed in the chapel (doc. 26).49 T h e r e was still w o r k to be done in the chapel, however, and the d u k e urgently w a n t e d this and other P a l a z z o decorations completed in 1565 because the palace was being prepared as the future residence o f Francesco and his intended bride, G i o v a n n a d ' A u s t r i a , whose w e d d i n g was to take place on 18 D e c e m b e r 1565.50 A payment to B r o n z i n o of 17 February 1565 "per spese fatte . . . nel rassettare la cappella ch'e nella C a m e r a V e r d e " (for expenses incurred in tidying up the chapel in the C a m e r a Verde) establishes that the painter was active in the chapel at this time (doc. 27). It seems reasonable to suppose that the Medici-Toledo stemma that B r o n z i n o had originally painted at the center of the vault, inappropriate for the n e w owners o f the chapel, was at this time painted over, by B r o n z i n o or A l l o r i , w i t h the Trinity, bordered by fruits and flowers (Fig. 46).51 It is probable that w o r k still remained to be done on the spandrels, three o f w h o s e V i r t u e medallions were filled in a secco after the rest o f the fresco w o r k was completed. T h e discrepancy between the delicate execution o f the Justice

THE

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88

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CHAPEL

FIGURE 46.

Chapel of Eleonora, vault, detail of the Trinity painted over the MediciToledo coat of arms.

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AND

89

DECORATION

medallion (see Plate 13), which was consonant in style with the rest of Bronzino's fresco work in the chapel, and the coarser execution of the other three Virtues suggests that, under pressure to complete the chapel in 1565, Bronzino assigned the figures of Fortitude, Temperance, and Prudence to his chief assistant, Allori (see Figs. 35-37)." One further change in the chapel decoration was made long after Bronzino's death in 1572. In 1581-82 a workroom was constructed on the terrace outside the chapel, and the terrace walls were painted by Tommaso del Verrocchio." To make this newly decorated terrace accessible to the apartment of Grand Duchess Giovanna, the small chapel window was blocked in and a large recessed doorway was cut through to it. A payment for the brass doorknobs of the door on 15 October 1582 (doc. 29) indicates when this work was completed. This reconstruction resulted in the removal of a large section of the center of Moses Striding the Roc!{ and the Gathering of Manna (see Plate 8). The walls flanking the recessed doorway were painted in chiaroscuro to harmonize with the basamento (wainscoting), with the dove of the Holy Spirit depicted under the lintel of the door. The change also left an area to be filled in on the wall above the new door. The Angels with a Chalice, Host, and Globe was therefore added at this time, presumably by Allori (see Fig. 38).154 It was the final decoration in the chapel. Aside from Vasari's description, there is virtual silence on the Chapel of Eleonora in later sixteenth-century accounts of art works in Florence. Even such observers as Paolo Giovio and Anton Francesco Doni, who write about other works of art in the Palazzo, do not make note of the chapel.55 Later, in 1584, Raffaello Borghini simply repeats Vasari's notice with a few minor changes of wording, giving no evidence of having firsthand knowledge of the chapel decoration.56 Francesco Bocchi, in 1591, describes the Sala delle Udienze, the Chapel of the Priors, and the guardaroba—all on the second floor of the palace—but omits Eleonora's former apartment entirely.57 With the definitive transfer of the court to the Palazzo Pitti in the seventeenth century, the former ducal residence was used as an administrative building and for festive occasions. Eighteenth-century guidebooks to Florence—even entire works on the Palazzo alone—take no note of the chapel. Giovanni Richa, for example, writing on the churches of Florence, notes in the Palazzo only the Chapel of the Priors;58 and a long description and inventory of the palace men-

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tions neither the chapel nor the C a m e r a Verde. 59 T h e rare g u i d e b o o k s that m e n tion the second floor state that Eleonora's apartment consists o f the four r o o m s decorated by Vasari. 60 Indeed, the rest o f the apartment was not open to the public; and, after 1771, there w o u l d have been little reason to keep the chapel open, since Bronzino's altarpiece was transferred in that year to the Galleria degli U f f i z i (doc. 3 1 )- 6 ' In the early nineteenth century, the chapel became accessible again, and notices o f it b e g i n to appear in guides to the P a l a z z o Vecchio. T h e poor state o f the frescoes and the absence o f the altarpiece are the main themes. O n e g u i d e b o o k , for example, c o m m e n t s in 1843: " S o n o a lamentarsi in questa cappella notevole guasti, e sarebbe desiderabile vi si remediasse" ( T h e serious d a m a g e in this chapel is lamentable, and it should be taken care of). 62 In 1865, w h e n the capital o f Italy was transferred to Florence, a p r o g r a m o f restoration in the P a l a z z o was b e g u n under the direction o f C a r l o Falconieri. H e took personal credit for salvaging various w o r k s o f art in the palace, including the chapel. H e described the chapel d e c o r a t i o n — t h e first appreciative words about it since V a s a r i — a s follows: Io non so dire, ripeto, con quanto amore ho salvato dall'ultima perdizione una cappella del Bronzino, che è certamente quanto egli fatto si avesse di migliore e più stupendo, nella cui parete sono ritratti in affresco con incredibile finezza taluni fatti della sacra scrittura. . . . Ebbene era convertita questa cappella in magazzino di specchi, il cui fruttare e rifruttare l'avea distrutta per un terzo, senza malizia o rimordimento di chi al governo di cotesto palazzo era preposto.63

(I cannot tell you, I repeat, with what feeling I saved from being completely destroyed a chapel by Bronzino, certainly his best and most stupendous work. O n its walls are some scenes from the Holy Scriptures, painted in fresco with unbelievable delicacy. This chapel had been converted into a storeroom for mirrors, and the continual use and reuse of it had destroyed one-third of it, though without malice or remorse on the part of those appointed to manage the palace.)

Indeed, the chapel was in a lamentable state. Mirrors leaning against the frescoes had caused m u c h abrading and paint loss, especially in the lower part o f the entrance wall. T h e south wall had also suffered m a j o r d a m a g e f r o m humidity, par-

A L T A R P I E C E

AND

9

D E C O R A T I O N

ticularly the left side, where the frescoes on the lower part had been completely destroyed. Furthermore, the basamento, with its frieze of painted architecture and putto heads, had been repainted on the altar wall as well as on the south wall. In 1885-86, after the Palazzo Vecchio had become the seat of the Florentine government, yet another campaign of restoration was undertaken.64 This included the chapel, whose condition continued to be commented on.65 Anna Baia, writing the first (and still the only) biography of Eleonora, gives the chapel only passing mention, although she does refer to it as "quella maraviglioso cappelletta dipinta dal Bronzino" (that marvellous little chapel painted by Bronzino).66 Finally, in 1909 there was a comprehensive restoration of the second floor, including the apartments of Eleonora. Windows that had been walled up were reopened, floors were restored, and the Lamentation altarpiece with its wings of the Annunciation was returned from the Uffizi.67 Thus, in the early twentieth century, the Chapel of Eleonora was opened to the public for the first time in its history.

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CHAPTER FOUR

THE

FRESCOES

The frescoes in the Chapel of Eleonora (see Plates 3-8) are Bronzino's sole work in mural painting from his mature years, the only later fresco by him being the enormous Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo of 1565-69 in the nave of S. Lorenzo (Fig. 47). The chapel frescoes, however, are stylistically related to the marmoreal, crystalline mode of Bronzino's mature paintings on panel, including works of the mid-1540s such as the chapel's own altarpiece (see Plate 11) and the Allegory of Venus (see Fig. 11), as well as to his monumental public altarpieces of 1552, Christ in Limbo (see Fig. 10) and the Resurrection in the Guadagni Chapel at SS. Annunziata.1 Moreover, the stylistic evolution of the frescoes leads directly to the mode of the Story of Joseph tapestry series as well as to that of other Bronzino tapestries of the mid-i540S (see Plate 33; Figs. 5, 69, 103, 176). Indeed, the chapel frescoes mark a final transition in Bronzino's work from his early to his mature style, a shift that coincided with—and was reinforced by—his move from private to predominantly ducal patronage. The chapel frescoes were begun soon after Bronzino worked as an assistant to Pontormo in the frescoes at Villa Castello;2 he had earlier worked independently as a fresco painter, however, as in St. Benedict Tempted in the Wilderness, painted for the Florentine Badia (Fig. 48).3 This lunette of the late 1520s has dimensions almost identical to those of the arched frescoes in the chapel, but it is vastly different in style, with its Pontormesque saint and its landscape setting. Moreover, dur-

94

FIGURE

48.

St. Benedict Tempted in the Wilderness. S. Salvi.

FIGURE 49.

Pietà with Angels (tabernacle). S. Casciano, Mercatalle.

ing his stay in Pesaro in 1530-32 Bronzino had participated in the mural decorations commissioned by Guidobaldo della Rovere, duke of Urbino, at the Villa Imperiale.4 There, the young Florentine painter had come in contact with the style and fresco technique of the Raphael school, and he may also have visited other northern Italian cities such as nearby Urbino and Loreto. After his return from Pesaro—and before he entered the service of Duke Cosimo—Bronzino painted the Pietà with Angels in a tabernacle near Florence (Fig. 49) This fresco, now ruined and overpainted, must once have been an impressive work (of interest also as an early essay on the subject of the Chapel of Eleonora altarpiece). Works now lost, however, may have been the most decisive in Cosimo's selecting Bronzino for the important commission of Eleonoras chapel. These include the two large narrative paintings for the duke's wedding apparato in 1539. According to Vasari, it was these istorie—"the best paintings to be executed for that occasion"—that brought Bronzino's talents to Cosimo's attention.6 Before beginning his work in the chapel Bronzino seems to have visited Rome. Although there is no documentation for a Roman trip before 1548, when letters place him there,7 the visual evidence that he knew both antique and contemporary Roman art, especially that of Michelangelo and Raphael, strongly indicates a visit to the city shortly before he entered Duke Cosimo's service in 1539.

B R O N Z I N O ' S

P A I N T I N G S

96

IN

THE

C H A P E L

''

FIGURE 50.

"

ir

I

-

»

G i o r g i o Vasari, vault of the Chapel of Duke Cosimo de' Medici. Palazzo Vecchio.

The Vault The chapel's vault is designed as an oval articulated by ribs that form a saltire cross (see Plate 5), an attenuated geometric form that displaces the emphasis of the vault's composition to the corners of the room, which are strongly accented by the densely decorated spandrels.8 This oval design is unprecedented in Florentine chapel decoration, but it was shortly to be imitated by Salviati in Eleonora's scrittoio (see Fig. 33) and later by Vasari in Cosimo's private chapel (Fig. 50).9 The conceit of the open loggia is also innovative for a chapel vault. Various nonFlorentine (and secular) ceiling decorations have been suggested as sources for

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97

FIGURE 5 1 .

R a p h a e l , L o g g i a di Psyche. R o m e , V i l l a Farnesina.

Bronzino's combination o f the trellis m o t i f and the sotto-in-su figures (painted as if seen f r o m below) against the sky. Raphael's L o g g i a di Psyche in the Villa Farn e s i n a — l i k e the chapel, an e p i t h a l a m i u m — i s a clear prototype (Fig. 51).10 M o d e l s were also available in Florence in recent paintings by P o n t o r m o . Most i m m e d i a t e for B r o n z i n o must have been the loggias at V i l l a C a r e g g i and V i l l a Castello, w h e r e he had recently assisted his former master. A s descriptions by Vasari and d r a w i n g s by P o n t o r m o indicate, the C a r e g g i loggia included pendentives e d g e d by garlands and an oval vault design w i t h putti seen f r o m below (Figs. 52-53). 11 W e do not k n o w precisely w h a t role these lost decorations may have

BRONZINO

S

PAINTINGS

IN

THE

CHAPEL

FIGURE 52.

Jacopo d a P o n t o r m o , studies for the vault o f the V i l l a C a r e g g i l o g g i a . U f f i z i .

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99

FIGURE 54.

J a c o p o da P o n t o r m o , s t u d y for G o d the F a t h e r in t h e c u p o l a o f the C a p p o n i Chapel. Uffizi.

played in the development of ideas for the chapel, but Bronzino seems to have carried over at least some of the elements of Pontormo's design. Bronzino also looked to Pontormo's cupola (no longer extant) in the Capponi Chapel (see Fig. 14).12 There, in an illusionistic design unusual for Florence, four patriarchs seen from below were portrayed sitting on a parapet at the corners of Brunelleschi's hemispheric cupola, with God the Father seated on a higher level opposite the altar.13 Pontormo's large gesturing figures may be visualized from his studies—in particular, one for the God the Father, seated with widespread arms (Fig. 54).14 This figure seems to have been a source for Bronzino's St. Jerome, w h o is likewise placed opposite the altar (see Plate 18).

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Framed and articulated by fictive architectural elements, Bronzino's vault is a tour de force of illusionism. Light radiates from behind the medallion, transforming the vault into a vision of open blue sky behind the garlanded stone trellis, and billowing white clouds support the four saints attended by Herculean putti w h o cavort athletically in front of the garlands. T h e saints were executed, Vasari tells us, "con diligenzia et amore grandissimo" (with diligence and the greatest devotion).15 Three of t h e m — F r a n c i s (with his companion, Brother Leo), Jerome, and John—are transfixed by transcendental contemplation, modeled by the heavenly radiance into powerful presences, vividly immediate both physically and psychologically. St. Michael, in contrast, is a more idealized figure, flattened emblematically against the sky in his compartment over the altar. In late 1540 or early 1541, after he had been commissioned to paint the chapel, Bronzino made a handsome presentation drawing of the vault composition for his ducal patrons. This modello, highly finished in black chalk and gray ink and wash highlighted in white on blue-gray paper, is the earliest surviving work related to the chapel decoration (Plate 15).'6 There are no analogous drawings by Bronzino from before 1540, but the style of this drawing is comparable to that of his small Nativity, datable to 1539 (Fig. 55).17 T h e modello suggests how Bronzino developed his ideas at an experimental point of transition between his early works (which themselves vacillate between an arbitrary Pontormesque concept of form and a more naturalistic style) and his evolving Maniera. 18 It is characterized by luminosity, a fluidity of composition, and a delicate articulation of figures, while in the fresco Bronzino made changes that indicate a shift toward artificial conventions of figure composition, space, light, and emotional expression that were to become the artistic vocabulary of the Maniera. For example, the rhythmic and Pontormesque figure of St. John in the drawing (similar to St. Joseph of the Nativity) is a more compact, sculptural form in the fresco (Plate 19). There is also a hardening of the fluid forms and a squaring-off of the cursive rhythms of the drawing in the frescoed St. Francis and Brother Leo, as the forms are shifted parallel to the picture surface (Plate 17). This direction is still more marked in St. Jerome, where the drawing's pentimenti, or changes of design, show Bronzino experimenting with the head in near-profile and the right leg crossed behind the left. T h e saint moves actively in space, the upper body leaning forward urgently toward the crucifix, the front leg extended and the left arm flung further back. In the fresco, the saint, now heavy and s o l i d —

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Nativity.

Budapest, M u s e u m of F i n e Arts.

his magnificent nude torso contrasting with his crimson robes—is forced into a more frontal and upright position, his torso and arms parallel to the picture surface (Plate 18). Subsequent to the modello Bronzino restudied the saint's head in a black chalk drawing (Fig. 56), revising it yet again in the painted head with its flowing beard (Fig. 57).19 If the painting of the vault proceeded clockwise from the altar wall (as it did in the Moses frescoes), then Bronzino painted St. Michael last (Plate 16), drastically and abruptly revising his style in this figure. The illusionistic and rhythmic sketch of the saint fighting the devil in the modello was followed by a precise and exquisitely modeled black chalk study from the nude, which fixed his final, less mobile

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Study for the head of St. Jerome. Uffizi.

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Chapel of Eleonora, St. Jerome, detail of the head.

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position (Fig. 58).20 And then, in the fresco, the frontal saint stops the clockwise flow around the ceiling by looking to the right and down, his left leg and sword forced parallel to one another, and his pinwheeling limbs splayed across his compartment. The cloud bank that is a seat for his companions is tilted up, almost spilling him out of his shallow space. The archangel has been wrenched out of the illusionistic context of the ceiling, not even sharing in the light that illuminates the saints from above. Flatly lit from the front, frozen in place like an emblem over the altar, St. Michael is the antithesis of the illusionism and emotional communication of the other saints. Moreover, in contrast to their relative simplicity of dress, he is a figure of decorative splendor, with his great multicolored wings, his blue and gold costume, and his gold sandals. A golden veil of color suggesting a diaphanous armor covers his idealized torso, which contrasts strikingly with the naturalistic treatment of the torso of the aged St. Jerome opposite him. The painted St. Michael exemplifies many of the conventions of Bronzino's developing mature style—tipped-up space and frontal light; flatness of pose contradicted by marble-like sculptural modeling; accented, parallel, and angular limbs; and polished finish of the extremities. He is the first such figure to be painted by Bronzino, and his head is the earliest example of a glacially idealized male type that Bronzino would favor in many later works. St. Michael's elegant head and his contrived posture seem to refer to Michelangelo's Victory of 1530-32, one of the first sculptures to exhibit the fully developed characteristics of the Maniera (see Fig. 88). In evoking this work (which, like St. Michael, represents the victory of good over evil), Bronzino declared an admiration of Michelangelo's art that informs the chapel's Moses frescoes, the chapel's altarpiece, and his mature art in general. Bronzino, who was a poet as well as a painter (he also imitated Michelangelo's poetry), expressed his admiration not only in his paintings but in two sonnets dedicated to Michelangelo. The imagery of these suggests that the chapel's St. Michael was not just influenced by Michelangelo's sculpture but was intended as homage to the master. Both poems begin with the wordplay Michelangelo/Michel Angelo (a conceit found in other mid-cinquecento poetry), and both express Bronzino's profound debt to him.21 The first sonnet begins with an untranslatable pun on Buonarroti and continues with a declaration of Bronzino's devotion:

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O stupor di natura, Angelo eletto, Ch'avete al virtuoso il Buono arroto (0 marvel of nature, angel elect, who has sharpened goodness to perfection)

Con puro core, e con sincero affetto Fin da'primi anni miei vifeci voto, Terrestre Dio, di me tutto, e devoto Vi consacrai la mano, e I'intelletto. (With pure heart and sincere affection I have prayed to you from my earliest years, 0 terrestrial God, and I have devoutly consecrated to you my entire self my hand, my intellect.)

The other sonnet reiterates Bronzino's sense of indebtedness to Michelangelo: Come I'alto Michele Angel con forte Mano, e felice asserenando il cielo (As the angel Michael on high with strong andfelicitous hand making the heavens serene)

0 nobile alma, o mente alta, ed o mano Sovr'ogni altra felice, a voi si debbe Quanto han di buono, e beigli studii nostri. (0 noble soul, O lofty mind, and 0 hand more felicitous than any other, we owe to you what[ever] of good and beauty our pursuits possess.)

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T h e two sets of putti w h o stand between the saints, called "putti bellissimi" by Vasari, echo the contrast between the flattened, angular, front-lit St. Michael and the other saints, more three-dimensional and foreshortened. T h e seated putto (Fig. 59) and the striding putto (Fig. 60) over the entrance wall move and turn in space in sharply contrasting postures, whereas the putti flanking St. Michael repeat the saint's frontal pose and are almost mirror images (Plates 20-21). Putti such as these do not appear earlier in Bronzino's art.22 In type, however, they resemble the children in his Washington Holy Family of the late 1520s (Fig. 64)" and are thus another stylistic link between this initial part of the chapel decoration and Bronzino's earlier painting. Indeed, a large modello in black chalk that Bronzino originally used (reversed) for the Christ child seems to have served for the head of the putto to the right of St. Michael (Fig. 62)." Bronzino added the wings in the drawing and adapted the angle of the head to the sotto-in-su scheme of the vault (Fig. 63). But more than any source in Bronzino's own art, these muscular, athletic putti reflect his study of the Sistine ceiling. T h e seated putto strikingly recalls Michelangelo's Jonah, and all the putti evoke the sculpturesque ignudi, who, like them, are set against painted architecture, accompanied by garlands and ribbons. Their poses are reminiscent of specific ignudi, such as the one to the right above the Libyan Sibyl (Fig. 61), which is reflected in the putto to the right of St. Michael (see Plate 21). Like Pontormo before him in the putti around the oculus in the lunette Vertumnus and Pomona at Villa Poggio a Caiano (1521), Bronzino turned Michelangelo's heroic nudes into playful children. But in contrast to the eccentric naturalism of Pontormo's rustic urchins, which the putti of the modello still recall, Bronzino's putti have a mock-heroic, sculptural quality, and their exaggerated scale and pose enhance their decorative role. Another, more contemporary, intermediary between Bronzino and Michelangelo was Tribolo's decorative interpretation of the ignudi in the putti on the base o f the Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus at Villa Castello (see Fig. 3). Although work on it continued long after 1540, the fountain was designed in the late 1530s, and Bronzino could have k n o w n Tribolo's model for it, which the sculptor is shown holding in Vasari's Duke Cosimo de' Medici with His Architects, Engineers, and Sculptors (see Fig. 8), or other modelli,25 His striding putto (see Fig. 60) derives

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Chapel of Eleonora, striding putto.

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62.

Study for the head of the putto to the right of St. Michael. Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen.

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Chapel of Eleonora, head of the putto to the right of St. Michael.

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Holy Family. Washington, National Gallery of Art, The Samuel H. Kress Collection.

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FIGURE 65.

Niccolò Tribolo, Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus, detail, putti on the stem. Villa Castello.

f r o m a putto (once playing with a garland) on the stem (Fig. 65), and his seated putto (see Fig. 59) was taken in reverse from Tribolo's identically posed putto on the basin (Fig. 66).26 T h e putti of the vault raise a major stylistic issue in the chapel decoration and in other of Bronzino's paintings of the decade 1 5 3 5 - 4 5 : his use of antique and contemporary sculptural models and his apparent efforts to make his painting closely imitative of sculpture—sometimes, but not invariably, the same thing. Bronzino's preoccupation with sculpture had been gaining momentum since the early 1530s

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FIGURE 66.

Niccolò Tribolo, Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus, detail, putti on the base. Villa Castello.

as he moved away from Pontormo's more flexible and painterly style. The first major examples are two paintings of about 1533: St. Sebastian (Fig. 67), where Bronzino reconstructed a classical torso for the martyr, and Andrea Doria as Neptune (Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera), where he portrayed the sitter in subdued colors as a living sculpture, possibly related to Bandinelli's contemporaneous project for a monument to the Genoese admiral.27 Later, at about the time he began the chapel decoration, Bronzino used fragments of classical sculpture as the basis for figures in paintings such as the Panciatichi Holy Family (Galleria degli Uffizi), where the Virgin's head is closely modeled on that of an Aphrodite.28 And he

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FIGURE 67.

St. Sebastian. L u g a n o , Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.

continued throughout his career to quote or allude to the sculpture of his contemporaries.29 The relation of Bronzino's painting to sculpture was not just an episode in the development of his personal style. It reflected an issue with wide ramifications in Florentine art and culture during the 1540s, when the paragone was debated with renewed interest by Florentine literati and artists. Their concerns were given literary expression in the second lecture of Benedetto Varchi's Due lezzioni (delivered in March 1547; published in 1550) and in letters by Vasari, Bronzino, Pontormo, Tasso, Francesco da Sangallo, Tribolo, Cellini, and Michelangelo in answer to Varchi's query on the primacy of the arts.30 Of course the sculptors

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defended their art and the painters theirs, but what is significant for Bronzino's sculptural manner of painting is Varchi's own advocacy of sculpture. T h e whole debate, indeed, seems to reflect a temporary shift in the hierarchy of the visual arts in the 1540s, with sculpture briefly eclipsing the established superiority of painting. 31 Bandinelli's sculptural style all'antica and Bronzino's sculpturesque painting, having won the favor of Duke Cosimo in the early 1540s, became, to a large degree, the "official" mode of the art of his court. A case in point is the contrasting fortunes of Bronzino and Salviati at the Medici court in the 1540s. Salviati's career in Florence suggests that his painterly and ornamental style was ultimately not to the taste of Cosimo and his advisers, especially the powerful Riccio.32 T h r o u g h his contacts with Tasso, w h o intervened on his behalf with Riccio, Salviati had been awarded the important commission for the Camillus frescoes in 1543, but he fell from favor and failed to secure the commission for the choir of S. Lorenzo, which Riccio gave to Pontormo. 33 N o r did he fare well in his work on the Joseph tapestries, to which he contributed only a single cartoon before departing permanently for Rome in 1548. In contrast, Bronzino, w h o painted frescoes, altarpieces, and portraits alike in an increasingly sculptural style, was much in demand. Bronzino was not alone among his contemporaries in using sculptural models or in painting in a sculptural manner, but he was the most prominent—and enthusiastic—cinquecento proponent of this approach to painting. Indeed, it was his emulation of sculpture, together with the exquisite finish and artifice of his painting, that led Cellini to praise him as a painter second only to Michelangelo. In his letter to Varchi, Cellini writes:

Oggi si vede Michelagnolo essere il maggior pittore che mai ci sia stato notizia, né infra gli antichi né infra i moderni, solo perché tutto quello che fa di pittura lo cava dagli studiatissimi modegli fatti di scultura; né so cognoscere chi più s'apressi oggi a tale verità d'arte, che il virtuoso Bronzino.34 (Michelangelo is taken today to be the greatest painter ever known, among either the ancients or the moderns, precisely because everything he does in painting is based on closely studied sculptural models; I do not know anyone today who comes closer to such artistic truth than the virtuoso Bronzino.)

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It may not be coincidental that Bronzino's letter to Varchi discusses the art of painting only in the context of refuting arguments in favor of sculpture, never (in this unfinished statement) to defend painting proper. 35 His review of the case for sculpture gives a valuable clue to the qualities he found attractive in it. T h e issue that seems to have concerned him the most—and the only one in which he touches on the painter's side of the argument—is that of multiple views: Dicono appresso che, dovendo farsi dagli scultori quasi sempre le statue tonde, . . . bisogna aver sommo riguardo che stiano bene per tutte le vedute, e se ad una veduta la loro figura ara grazia, che non manchi nell'altre vedute. . . . Dove così non avviene al pittore, il quale non fa mai in una figura altro che una sola veduta, la quale sceglie a suo modo e, bastandogli che per quel verso che la mostra abbia grazia, non si cura di quello che arebbe nell'altre vedute, che non appariscono/6 (Then they go on to say that since sculptors must almost always make their statues in the round,. . . they must take great care that the work looks well from all views, and if their figure has grace from one view, they must make sure that it is not deficient from the other views. . . . But this problem does not present itself to the painter, who in each figure never gives more than one view, which he chooses the way he wants; since he is satisfied if it is beautiful on the side he shows, he does not care what it would look like from the viewpoints that cannot be seen.)

W h a t is left unsaid (and what Bronzino might have gone on to explain in his unwritten praise of painting) is how the painter could achieve the effect of sculpture's multiple views solely through disegno (drawing or design). N o r do others w h o wrote to Varchi in defense of painting refer to this matter; however, it is touched on by Pietro Aretino in a letter of 1540 to Vasari. In it he praises, in a drawing (now lost) by Vasari for a Gathering of Manna, lo ignudo che, chinato in terra, scopre il dinanzi e il di dietro, per esser in virtù de la forza facile e con grazia de la sforzata facilitade, calamita degli occhi.37 (the nude who, bending down to the ground, simultaneously reveals both front and back, so that by virtue of the effortless power and the grace of its powerful effortlessness it acts like a magnet to the eye.)

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FIGURE 68.

Hellenistic, the Belvedere Torso. Musei Vaticani.

This type of figure also appears in Bronzino's painting about 1540. For Bronzino's embracing of a sculptural ideal led him not only to paint in a way that evokes sculpture but also to introduce specific poses that might remedy some of the alleged shortcomings of the art of painting. The first instances of flattened, twisted poses showing more than would normally be seen of a figure are the kneeling shepherd in the Nativity (see Fig. 55) and the figure of Cosimo in the portrait of him as Orpheus (see Fig. 19). Parts of these figures are rotated so that we see simultaneously the head in profile or full face and the back almost parallel to it. This demonstration of the painter's art in competition with that of the sculptor is all the more pointed since the source of both figures is the great antique exemplar, the Belvedere Torso (Fig. 68).38 The striding putto on the vault of the

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Chapel of Eleonora also embodies perfectly the same principle (see Fig. 60). Moreover, the putto's similarity to one of Tribolo's fountain putti (see Fig. 65) suggests that it, too, was a painter's competitive response to contemporary sculpture—Bronzino's demonstration of his own mastery of the sculptor's multiple views.39 The painted "sculpture" of the chapel's spandrels, whose Cardinal Virtues are under the feet of Bronzino's heroic putti, reflects the issues of the paragone on a playful level (see Plate 13; Figs. 35-37). Indeed, the frequent appearance of such motifs in Bronzino's painting suggests a constant preoccupation with this issue. His Pygmalion and Galatea (Palazzo Vecchio, ca. 1530), whose very theme is the paragone, shows a monumental statue brought to life not only through the sculptor's art but also the painter's, as is the relief of Venus and Mars on the altar behind it.40 The lively little statues that vouch for the cultivated taste of the sitters in such Bronzino portraits as Youth with a Lute (Galleria degli Uffizi) and Portrait of an Unknown Gentleman (Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada) can also be read in the context of the paragone, as can two Bronzino portraits of young men with statuettes, Sculptor (Paris, Musée du Louvre) and Young Man (London, National Gallery).41 In the latter, recently identified by James Holderbaum as a posthumous portrait of Pierino da Vinci,42 the painted sculpture—a small lavender-colored Bacchus with a putto—has a painterly vivacity that contrasts with the passive face of its creator. The chapel's spandrels are a tour de force of illusionistic painting—intricate caprices typical of Bronzino's taste for the bizarre and fantastic, which is a hallmark of Maniera.43 The medallions are conceived as Active reliefs inserted into the convex painted spandrels, which, in turn, are set over draperies that separate them from the fictive architecture of the vault (and which, on the north wall, actually overlap the fictive stone arch). Suspended in front of the spandrels are female heads whose drapery (in Prudence and Temperance; see Figs. 35-36) extends to the sides of the medallions to support their devices. Bronzino characteristically plays with forms that exist at the borderline between animate and inanimate, and these heads are witty examples of his fascination with ambiguous reality. Though disembodied, they are endowed with lively expressions, as if commenting on the painted scenes around them. Below each medallion hang three or four grimacing masks; all, especially a bestial head and a screaming face below Temperance, seem to have come to life.

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FIGURE 69.

Joseph Fleeing Potiphar's Wife (tapestry). Palazzo Vecchio, Sala de' Dugento.

There are no real precedents in Bronzino's art for these sophisticated decorative images, but, along with the garlands of the vault, they anticipate the decorative vocabulary of the tapestry borders Bronzino designed in 1545 with the same fanciful motifs of garlands, masks, draped heads, and delicate herm-like figures who playfully overlap the picture space (see Plate 33; Figs. 86, 103, 105, 176). And in the background of one of them, Joseph Fleeing Potiphar's Wife (Fig. 69), reliefs and statues seem to occupy "real" space, and oval medallions with figures echo the conceit of the chapel spandrels.44

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The Walls In the chapel's stories of Moses Bronzino continued the dialogue between an illusionistic classicism and an emerging style of greater artificiality and abstraction that we have seen in the vault frescoes.45 In The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua of 1541 (see Plate 6), the episodes are set against the deeply receding Red Sea, and the figures are discrete sculptural entities, but in The Brazen Serpent of 1542 space is compressed, with forms overlapping and figures arbitrarily stylized (see Plate 7). By the end of the cycle, in Moses Striding the Roc\ and the Gathering of Manna of 1542-43 (see Plate 8), Bronzino had established a narrative mode of vertically rising compositions that he would elaborate in the Story of Joseph tapestries of the mid-1540s. A striking feature of the Red Sea-Joshua fresco is the sea itself. It is a monumental version of the lucid watery landscape in Bronzino's little Nativity (see Fig. 55). But one might also speculate on the possible influence of the deep seascape in Domenico Ghirlandaio's Christ Calling SS. Peter and Andrew, which is opposite Cosimo Rosselli's Crossing of the Red Sea (see Fig. 148) in the Sistine Chapel Moses cycle, which Bronzino studied. Bronzino's fresco appears to follow the spatialillusionistic mode of Ghirlandaio's work, yet the vast glacial expanse of the sea, with its distant horizon line and its figures diminishing in size in an exaggerated demonstration of Albertian perspective, does not fulfill its promise of a unified, readable space in the Florentine tradition. Instead, space is fragmented, and its parts do not read easily as a whole. In this fresco Bronzino departed from the clarity of space and narrative characteristic of Renaissance painting, tending toward an obfuscation of both spatial construction and narrative sequence typical of the Maniera. As a result of this approach, the subject of the work is obscured; it was not even described correctly by knowledgeable contemporaries (see Chapter 7). The painting is also singularly undramatic as a narrative—especially considering that it purports to tell the great story of the Exodus. The lack of dynamism or focus in the composition, the groups of coolly detached Israelites, the unnatural clarity of the airless atmosphere, and the attention to realistic detail all serve to deemphasize the drama. Over sixty years ago, in one of the first modern appreciations of Bronzino's frescoes in the chapel, Arthur McComb wrote:

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FIGURE 70.

Michelangelo, Moses. Rome, S. Pietro in Vincoli.

It is hard to believe that we are here in a company of harassed Jews fleeing from slavery. This is rather a society of the elect, of youthful antique gods and fair Renaissance ladies. The sea to which these creatures of a marble formality have come is icy and still, and the arctic impression is borne out by color of a boreal coolness.46

Of the three wall frescoes in the chapel, this one displays most clearly Bronzino's obsession with a sculptural ideal in painting. Some of the figures are based on actual sculptures. T h e seated Moses (whose gesture is a languid, mannered translation of that of G o d the Father in Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling Creation of Adam) would be unthinkable without the great Michelangelo prototype in Rome (Fig. 70). T h e population of the foreground includes three nudes whose firm

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Raphael, Parnassus. Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura.

modeling and precise contours adhere to the same plastic ideal. These figures are so complete as to suggest marble statues, and two of them have the aura of the classical quotation so dear to Bronzino and his contemporaries. The seated nude with a jar (partly obscured by the column) is a river god type, perhaps inspired by the same antique source that Raphael used for Sappho (also a repoussoir figure) in the Parnassus (Fig. 71). The nude with his back turned is the second of these, but its sculptural impact has been compromised by damage to the fresco. A black chalk model-study for him—a drawing in the same classicizing, sculptural mode as the study for St. Michael (see Fig. 58)—records the pose of the legs and also gives an idea of the subtle modeling and play of light over the smooth polished forms that must originally have characterized the painted figure (Plate 22).47 This nude was adapted from the Idolino (Fig. 72), a Roman bronze copy of a Greek original that was unearthed in Pesaro in 1530, when Bronzino was working there.48 The changes Bronzino made from the model indicate his new figural ideal, the fluid movement and gentle contrapposto of the antique youth being exchanged for a calculated pose of more decorative artificiality. This nude balances

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the reclining nude, whose contrapposto is similarly contrived; both have also been given an angular emphasis—the seated nude by the arm bent across the body, a motif to recur often in Bronzino's figures, and the standing man by the exaggerated thrust of the hip, the raised arm (another favorite Maniera motif), and the left leg crossed behind the right. This last pose, also derived from antique sculpture, is a "signature motif" of Bronzino's, appearing in a variation in the nude looking into the sea at the center of the fresco. In The Brazen Serpent (see Plate 7) Bronzino painted a dramatic scene with overscale figures and extremely foreshortened nudes, a dynamic composition of bold crossing diagonals and angular patterns that contrasts with the serenity of the first fresco painted in the chapel. These qualities of The Brazen Serpent are all

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the more striking because its drama surprises the visitor as he turns from contemplating the altarpiece to view the fresco over the door to the chapel. In contrast to the unbroken wall on which Bronzino painted the Red

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Joshua fresco, the entrance wall is broken by a doorway, around which Bronzino had to arrange his composition. Like Raphael in the Parnassus (see Fig. 71), he used the doorframe to create the illusion of a hill—in this case, the mound on which Moses raised the healing serpent. The novelty of this spatial construction is astonishing: Bronzino created the illusion of half the hill and its population, some of whom spill down into our space on either side (like Raphael's poets); above, the Israelites diminish in size as the crest of the hill is reached, and two even smaller men (a priest and a nude) emerge in bust length from behind the cross on the other side. Michelangelo's influence is strongly evident in The Brazen Serpent, which depends on the spandrel in the Sistine Chapel (Fig. 73). Michelangelo's pattern of

FIGURE 73.

Michelangelo, The Brazen Serpent. Vatican, Sistine Chapel,

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intertwined figures on a rising spatial plane is echoed here, as are motifs such as the woman being held up to be healed (Plate 23), but Bronzino has stratified the action so that the dead figures and those carrying out a balletic struggle with the snakes are in the foreground, while the saved are moved up toward the isolated cross on the summit of the hill. Unlike Michelangelo, moreover, Bronzino suppresses the narrative of the Israelites' mortal struggle: the subject is drained of passion, the drama is staged, and the geometry of his cool, sculptural forms is a metaphor for their emotional immobility. A m o n g the frescoes of the chapel, Vasari singled out The Brazen Serpent for comment; in fact it is the only one he describes, and he mentions it first. Typically, he was impressed by Bronzino's vivid depiction of la storia delle biscie,. . . con molte belle considerazioni di figure morse, che parte muoiono, parte sono morte, et alcune guardando nel serpente di bronzo guari49 scono. (the story of the snakes, . . . with a very beautiful treatment of the bitten figures—some dying, some dead—and others, gazing at the brazen serpent, who are healed.) Indeed, in the variety and complexity of their postures and the elegance of their linear definition, these figures demonstrate a newly fluid, facile, and ornamental manner not seen before in Bronzino's art. T h e opposing pair over the d o o r w a y — the dark man and the pale woman (who is the most artificially contrived figure in all Bronzino's art; see Plate 23)—are the apogee of his ability to transform drama into artifice through disegno. In the last two paragraphs of his letter to Varchi, Bronzino emphasizes the importance of contour lines, as opposed to chiaroscuro, in creating rilievo (the effect of three-dimensionality) in painting. Refuting the old argument that sculpture is difficult because of the hardness of the medium, Bronzino asserts that the three-dimensionality of sculpture belongs not to art but to nature and that art exists only in surfaces and lines: Solo dicono che, per questo, non imitano più la natura per far di rilievo che altrimenti, anzi tolgono la cosa che già era di rilievo fatta dalla natura, . . . ma solo è dell'arte le linee che cercondano detto corpo, le quali sono in superficie; onde, cornee detto, non è dell'arte l'essere di rilievo, ma della natura.50

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5

FIGURE 74.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Brazen Serpent, detail, head of a dead woman.

(They say only that. . . they [sculpture and painting] do not imitate nature more by creating three dimensions differently; rather they take over the thing that was already made three-dimensional by nature; . . . but only the lines that outline said body, which are on the surfaces, belong to the art of painting; therefore, as we said, three-dimensionality does not belong to art but to nature.)

T h e painter, then, has a more difficult task than the sculptor—that of defining form through contour. Here, in the artfully twisted figures of The Brazen Bronzino gives his first full-scale demonstration of mastery over that task.

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Serpent,

FIGURE 75.

Michelangelo, study of Venus. Uffizi.

Bronzino also attained a new level of grazia in The Brazen Serpent in the figures of the half-dozen women crowded into the upper left of the fresco (Plate 24), those to the center right (see Plate 23), and the dead woman at the lower right, whose hair has a sensuous linear patterning (Fig. 74). These exemplify the notion of bodily extremities as the locus of grazia that was so important to Vasari, who writes in the preface to part three of the Vite of the desirability of "una fine, ed una estrema perfezione ne' piedi, mani, capegli, barbe" (finish and utter perfection in feet, hands, hair, and beards.)51 Bronzino was aware of Bandinelli's elegant female types (see Figs. 115-17); he also must have known the teste divine drawings of Michelangelo, such as the Venus (Fig. 75), that were so influential for Maniera. Bronzino's refined handling of the fresco medium in the elaborate braided head-

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FIGURE

76.

Rosso Fiorentino, Moses and the Daughters of Jetkro. Uffizi.

dresses of several of these Israelite women is analagous to Michelangelo's precise description in black chalk of fantastic idealized heads. The frescoed heads anticipate the elegantly appointed aristocratic ladies in Bronzino's chapel altarpiece (see Plate 1 1 ) and that of the pharaoh's wife in the tapestry Joseph in Prison and the Pharaoh's Banquet (Plate 33). Of the frescoes in the chapel, The Brazen Serpent is the most clearly linked in style with paintings by Bronzino's contemporaries. For example, there are a number of sources for the nudes in the foreground, especially the contrasting pair on either side of the doorway, who lie diagonally in opposing directions—foreshortened yet flattened. They are cousins to the Michelangelesque nudes in the foregrounds of (mainly Florentine) paintings of the 1520s and 1530s such as Rosso's

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FIGURE 77.

Domenico Beccafumi, The Punishment of Korah. Pisa cathedral.

Moses and the Daughters of Jethro of 1523 (Fig. j6)52 or Beccafumi's Punishment of Korah of 1536-38 (Fig. 77) and Scenes of Moses on Mt. Sinai and Moses Striking the Roc^

pavement of the Siena cathedral (see Fig. 150).53 Interestingly, all

these works depict Old Testament subjects that might have been especially interesting to Bronzino when he received the commission for the Moses frescoes. The fallen nudes in these works and in Bronzino's Brazen Serpent owe a great deal to these painters' study of late antique battle sarcophagi.54 Other antique influences as well were at work in Bronzino's fresco: the Laocoon was influential (as it had been for Michelangelo's spandrel) but is not precisely quoted. Likewise, the fleeing woman with her raised, crooked arm (see Plate 23) reveals Bronzino's study of the Niobid group, especially the running Niobid (Fig. 78),55 and his ideal-

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FIGURE 78.

Hellenistic, Niobid. Uffizi.

izing black chalk study for the head of the woman being held up to be healed (Fig. 79) may have been suggested by an Amazon or a Niobid (Fig. 8o).56 The head of the woman with a snake around her neck at the left margin of the fresco (see Plate 24), however, is directly quoted from the Dying Alexander (Fig. 8i).57 The pathos of all these Hellenistic sculptures and their common theme of the gods' punishing human presumption is singularly appropriate for the biblical story of the Brazen Serpent and for the didactic and political implications of Bronzino's fresco as well (see Chapter 12). The style of the fresco on the last wall Bronzino painted is difficult to assess (see Plate 8), for Moses Striding the Roc\ and the Gathering of Manna was drastically modified when the chapel's window was walled up, the doorway cut

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FIGURE 80.

Study for the head of a w o m a n in The Brazen Paris, private collection.

Serpent.

m

FIGURE

8I.

Hellenistic, Dying Alexander. U f f i z i .

through, and the sopraporta painted. T h e center section now missing included more of the blue sky, which united the two episodes of the Israelites in the desert at the top; more of the Rock of Horeb, which separated them below; and the end of Moses' rod, which effects the miracle. T h e style of this fresco, moreover, must be understood in relation to the missing window: since it was the only source of natural light in the chapel, the wall received (and receives today) little and irregular illumination. This may be why in some areas, such as the draperies of the drinking figures, Bronzino used a looser and more pictorial fresco technique than on the other two walls (Plate 25). H e also had the opportunity here to paint figures such as the blond woman next to the column (Fig. 82) as if they were illuminated by the light from above. Bronzino's softly modeled cartoon fragment (in charcoal heightened with white) for this head shows a careful observation of the passage from light on the right to deep shadow on the left of the face (Fig. 83).58

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FIGURE

82.

FIGURE

83.

Moses Striding the Rock, detail, head of a woman.

Study for the head of a woman in Moses Striking the Roc\. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

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33

FIGURE

84.

Study for two men drinking in Moses Striding the Rock,• Uffizi.

The only other drawing for Moses Striding the Rock, a squared black chalk study for the two men drinking water at the lower left, is of a different type (Fig. 84).59 A life study after two nudesj it shows more of them than appears in the fresco (the right arms of both men, the entire drinking bowl). When he came to paint this pair, Bronzino changed the lower youth into an old man wearing drapery over his head and shoulder (Fig. 85). This head is a reprise of a striking passage of realistic painting—the head of St. Elizabeth (in turn based on the Hellenistic sculpture, the Drunken Market Woman) in Bronzino's Washington Holy Family (see Fig. 64).60 Most of the characteristics of Bronzino's fully developed mature style are present in Moses Striking the Rock- Space is all but suppressed, and the dramatic con-

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FIGURE 85.

Moses Striking the Roc!{, detail, men in the foreground.

tortions of the figures in The Brazen Serpent are replaced by an overlapping pattern of rising forms, so that the composition anticipates the vertical designs of the narrow panels of Bronzino's Joseph tapestries, such as Benjamin Received by Joseph (Fig. 86). It is notable, however, that neither Bronzino's figures in the chapel nor those in the tapestries ever lose their heavy, rooted quality to float like the forms in Pontormo's Joseph tapestries or in his contemporaneous drawings for the frescoes of the S. Lorenzo choir such as a compositional study for Moses Receiving the Tables of the Law (Fig. 87).61 The complexity and elaboration of the crowd of highly ornamental types piled up toward Moses in this fresco are developments of the mode of composition of The Brazen Serpent. Both frescoes may well have been influenced by Jacopino del

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135

...

m

V sPhp

« 4 «Lfll I , g*

i

e

«

¥ 4

-zi.

m m

FIGURE

86.

Benjamin

Received by Joseph (tapestry). Rome,

FIGURE 87.

Palazzo del Quirinale.

Jacopo da Pontormo, study for Moses Receiving the Tables of the Law.

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Uffizi.

Conte's Preaching of St. John the Baptist in the Oratory o f S. G i o v a n n i Decollato, the most advanced example o f fresco painting in the n e w style in R o m e (see F i g . h i ) . I f this apparent influence in fact resulted f r o m an acquaintance w i t h Jacopino's fresco, then a trip to R o m e about 1539 seems more probable than ever. In the oratory B r o n z i n o w o u l d also have seen Salviati's Visitation (1538), w h o s e ornamental f o r e g r o u n d figures may have influenced those in The Crossing of the Red Sea. Moreover, such a trip w o u l d have given him an opportunity to see, or see again, the antique w o r k s that are echoed in his paintings o f about 1539, such as the Nativity

(see F i g . 55) and Du^e Cosimo de' Medici as Orpheus (see F i g . 19), as

well as in the chapel frescoes themselves. T h e composition of The Gathering of Manna differs f r o m that o f Moses

Strid-

ing the Rocf(. Instead o f a tightly interwoven pattern of u p w a r d - m o v i n g forms, the fresco is dominated by fewer, more m o n u m e n t a l , figures (only ten in all). T h e largest o f these is a n u d e holding an urn (Plate 26). A s a result o f the alteration o f the wall, this figure has lost his original spatial situation; his colossal size n o w seems anomalous, and he is uncomfortably cramped against the d o o r f r a m e . H e is, however, the most conspicuous "set-piece" on the chapel walls. T h i s n u d e demonstrates yet another way in w h i c h B r o n z i n o rivaled the sculptor's multiple views: thefigura serpentinata. For not only could a painted figure be flattened

and twisted like the striding putto on the vault (see F i g . 60), but its tor-

sion could be m a d e continuous (and to a degree abstract), and it could be isolated as a repoussoir figure in the f o r e g r o u n d o f the painting, as if a statue. T h e figura serpentinata, characteristic o f the Maniera, 62 had been anticipated in seated in the chapel decoration, like the Moses and the nude below him in the Red Joshua fresco (see Plate 6) or the small kneeling Moses in the Roc\

figures Sea-

(see Plate 8).

B u t the n u d e w i t h the urn in the Manna is the first true example o f the figura serpentinata

in Bronzino's art. Placed directly opposite the nude w i t h his back

turned in the f o r e g r o u n d o f the Red Sea-Joshua fresco, the twisted figure reads as a corrective Maniera counterpart to that nude, w h i c h still has a classical quality despite his contrived contrapposto. T h e s e similar nudes, both raising an a r m to hold an object, one turned away f r o m and the other facing the spectator, also suggest a play on the paragone and on the issue o f multiple views; moreover, their reference to sculpture is m a d e clear by Bronzino's evocation o f the antique Idolino in the pose o f the earlier nude and by his paraphrase of Michelangelo's the p a r a d i g m o f the figura serpentinata (Fig. 8 8 ) — i n the later one.

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37

Victory—

FIGURE 88.

Michelangelo, Victory. Palazzo Vecchio,

FIGURE 89.

Salone dei Cinquecento.

Study for the nude in The Gatheringof Manna. Uffizi.

There are two preparatory drawings in black chalk for this important figure. The first, on the verso of the study for the two drinking men in Moses Striding the Rocf{ (see Fig. 84), is a delicate detail study for the drapery that twists intricately over his hips (Fig. 89)." The other is a large modello for the whole figure, differing from it only in details and showing something of the original rocky setting to the left (Fig. 90).64

The Celebratory Mode of the Chapel Bronzino's fresco decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora (see Plates 3-4) is at once monumental and elaborate. The frescoes are painted in a grand manner rooted in the style of the Roman High Renaissance, but they are characterized by a Maniera

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FIGURE

90.

Study for the nude in The Gathering of Manna. Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana.

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39

taste for artificiality, abundance, and ornamentation, as well as by a richness of materials appropriate to a court chapel and to the personal taste of the new duchess of Florence. Here, albeit in a very different style, Bronzino revived the celebratory mode of Gozzoli's earlier painted chapel for the Medici. His frescoes of Moses and the Israelites have a precision of execution and a luxury of color and detail analogous to those of the Magi and their cortege. Where Michelozzo created a carved, gilded ceiling and pilasters, however, Bronzino painted a fanciful fictive architecture. It creates the illusion of a loggia built of pietra serena, the characteristic gray Florentine stone: its columns frame each of the Moses scenes; above, a stone trellis hung with garlands frames a blue sky; below, the loggia is supported by balustrades that frame cartouches with putto heads. The concetto (conceit) of the loggia permits all the available surfaces—walls and ceiling—to be covered with scenes and decorative motifs. Even the chapel's altarpiece—itself a work of decorative elegance—is embedded in the wall surface behind the painted architecture. Contributing to this impression of luxury are the elaborate costumes and jewels of many of the figures in the frescoes and the detailed treatment of their coiffures and headdresses—for example, those of the women to the left in The Brazen Serpent (see Plate 24). Precious objects and substances also abound: the ribs of the vault are fictive red porphyry, as was the central medallion as Bronzino first painted it; and the garlands were originally secured by gilded holders, now overpainted (see Plate 5). There is a plethora of objects made of precious metals and decorated with jewels: a sword of gold and lapis lazuli lies in front of the seated nude in The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua, where a silver ewer with a snake for a handle and a gold basin decorated with a Birth of Venus are displayed in the foreground (see Fig. 185). In The Gathering of Manna there are two gold basins and a large golden urn (see Plate 26), and, in the original altarpiece, there is a gold chalice in the hands of an angel and a large lapis lazuli ewer in those of Nicodemus (see Plate 11). Bronzino's color and fresco technique also contribute to the richness of the chapel paintings. Both were highly regarded by his contemporaries. The Venetian Paolo Pino's extraordinary praise of Bronzino as a painter and colorist is voiced in his Dialogo di pittura by Fabio, representing the Florentine point of view: Se Bronzino seguita all'ascendere, egli verrà un eccellentissimo maestro, et ardisco ch'el mi par el più bel coloritore che dipinga a' giorni nostri.65

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(If Bronzino continues to rise, he will become a most excellent master, and I venture [to say] that he seems to me the finest colorist [who is] painting in our time.)

Lauro, Pino's Venetian interlocutor, responds sympathetically, even though he, of course, prefers Titian: Bronzino é un perito maestro, e mi piace molto il suo fare, e li son anco parzial per le virtù sue, ma a me più sodisfa Tiziano. (Bronzino is a skilled master, and his manner pleases me very much, and I am also partial to him on account of his virtues, but I derive greater satisfaction from Titian.)

Pino, w h o seems to have been well acquainted with Bronzino and his art (or at least his reputation),66 does not mention specific paintings on which he bases this favorable judgment. Before 1548, when the Dialogo

was published, however,

Bronzino's only major work was the Chapel of Eleonora, and only its frescoes could have been k n o w n by Pino (or his informant), since the chapel's altarpiece had been exported to Besancon shortly after its completion in 1545. Vasari also praised Bronzino as a colorist (though not in the specific context of the chapel),67 and his concluding comment on the chapel frescoes makes clear his high opinion of Bronzino's accomplishment as a fresco painter: Et in somma questa opera, per cosa lavorata in fresco, non ha pari et è condotta con tutta quella diligenza e studio che si potè maggiore.68 (In a word, this work, executed as it is in fresco, has no equal, and it is painted with the greatest possible diligence and study.)

Bronzino's highly individual handling of color in the chapel frescoes—his audacity in both choice and combination of colors—is solidly based in an early

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4

I

sixteenth-century Florentine tradition of color experimentation that is seen first in Andrea del Sarto, then in Rosso. These painters used a palette based on intermediate hues (violet, neutral red and blue, and pale yellow) rather than the usual saturated red and blue seen, for example, in Raphael's paintings.69 Bronzino was similarly inventive in the choice of hues such as violet and an unusual range of greens and yellow-to-orange tones, including a pale yellow of great rarity in fresco painting. Another striking characteristic of the color in the chapel frescoes, this time related less to Sarto and Rosso than to the revival of certain characteristics of late quattrocento painting, is Bronzino's extensive use of blue. He employed not only the usual azurite but also lapis lazuli, the most expensive color in the artist's palette, which he used lavishly here in a display of Medicean conspicuous consumption.70 For example, it appears in areas of the frescoes opposite the window that receive the most light: the curtain behind Fortitude (see Plate 3) and draperies in The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua (see Plate 6). Bronzino also used it (with gold) to great luxurious effect in the costume of the archangel Michael (see Plate 16), in his place of honor over the altar, and throughout the first Lamentation, where it would have glowed in the light from the altar's candles (see Plate 11). And Bronzino used a rare and expensive indigo blue more extensively than was usual in Florentine frescoes—for example, in the curtain behind Temperance (see Plate 4), in the drapery of the kneeling soldier in Moses Appointing Joshua, and in the background of the David and Sibyl panels (see Plate 12). Bronzino's handling of color in the frescoes also has a decorative artificiality and an unreal quality that is characteristic of Maniera painting. It was achieved by an anti-naturalistic technique of modeling by saturation change (also known as up-modeling) and by the introduction of discrete cangianti (or color changes, in which two colors are juxtaposed) to give volume.71 The up-modeling or "blond manner" technique, which was a revival of the late quattrocento practice of painters such as Domenico Ghirlandaio, gives Bronzino's frescoes an atmosphere of unnatural purity and clarity, as opposed to the density of atmosphere characteristic of, say, Raphael's frescoes. That older manner of painting had been updated in the first decade of the century by Michelangelo in the Doni tondo (Galleria degli Uffizi) and in the Ancestors of Christ lunettes of the Sistine ceiling (both now revealing his technique more clearly, thanks to their recent cleaning).72 Michelangelo's frescoed lunettes are decidedly more painterly, however, than the smoothly

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m o d e l e d surfaces o f Bronzino's chapel frescoes, intended to be seen f r o m very close. Bronzino's blond manner, w i t h its overall pastel tonality, had also been used in Florence by P o n t o r m o in frescoes o f the 1520s such as the Passion o f Christ cycle at the Certosa di G a l l u z z o and the Annunciation

at S. Felicita. F o l l o w i n g the lead

o f M i c h e l a n g e l o and P o n t o r m o , B r o n z i n o modeled in pure tones w i t h o u t the addition o f black or (except in the blues) o f white. C o m p a r i s o n o f his technique and Allori's in Angels with a Chalice, Host, and Globe (see Plate 8) in the chapel itself is instructive in this respect. In contrast to Bronzino's pure colors, the addition o f black in Allori's m o d e l i n g gives this section o f the w i n d o w wall a distinctly m u d d y quality. A l t h o u g h never relying on cangianti to the extent Michelangelo did in his frescoes, B r o n z i n o does use some color changes such as yellow-blue (in Moses the Roc\ and the Gathering of Manna; see Plates

25-26), 73

Striding

green-violet (in the cur-

tain behind Justice; see Plate 13), blue-pink (in The Brazen Serpent-, see Plate 7), and other combinations. T h e s e are most striking in the fresco on the north wall that receives little light, and they may have been intended to bring coloristic life to that area.74 Bronzino's frescoes are also, as Vasari says, very finely w r o u g h t ("condotta con tutta quella diligenza e studio"). For example, he makes a play of different flesh t o n e s — f r o m the grayish cast of the dead nudes in The Brazen Serpent

to

the pearly flesh o f the w o m e n to the ruddy tint o f the athletic male nudes (see Plate 7 ) — a n d he subtly depicts reflected light, as in Moses Striding

the Rocf{

(see Plate 25). Moreover, he w o r k e d very slowly, p r o d u c i n g extremely small giornate (see Figs. 3 9 - 4 2 ) in comparison w i t h his contemporaries such as Raphael and Michelangelo. 7 5 F o r example, the seated nude and Moses in The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua, w h i c h are typical of his finely w o r k e d foreg r o u n d figures, were done over a period of four and six days, respectively. Bronzino's slow fresco procedure was partly due to his refined, highly w o r k e d technique, but it was also a function of the colors he u s e d — p a r t i c u l a r l y lapis lazuli and indigo, w h i c h are difficult to apply and require m u c h time. A l l his colors are laid densely one over the other, g i v i n g the surface a lapidary refinement, w i t h almost invisible junctures between the giornate. (Allori's giornate

in the sopra-

porta are less finely joined.) A n o t h e r characteristic o f the C h a p e l o f Eleonora decoration that contributes

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to its sense of luxury is Bronzino's ambitious adaptation, in the intimate space of a private chapel, of a decorative mode developed by the Raphael school in Rome for large-scale public frescoes. The way in which Bronzino contrasted the deep spatial expanse of the Red Sea with the sharply restricted space of the Moses scenes on the opposite wall and the way he built up the hill in The Brazen Serpent over the chapel doorway recall Raphael's spatial schemes of the Stanza della Segnatura, especially that of the Parnassus (see Fig. 71).76 But in the chapel all the elements of the decoration, with the exception of the spandrels, are overscale for the space. Where Raphael's frescoes are recessed under their framing arches and set above a high basamento, creating a sense of distance from the observer, Bronzino's densely populated scenes are brought right down to the spectator's level, supported only by the very low basamento. The figures of the vault, walls, and altarpiece alike are large-scale and sculptural. Some of them (notably the putti of the vault) even project out illusionistically, adding to a sense of horror vacui as they seem to crowd the none-too-ample space left for the spectator in this small chapel. The altarpiece touches the top of the basamento, which would have coincided with the height of the altar itself, and it is so large that its frame almost reaches the painted arch at the edge of the vault above. We must imagine, in addition, that the chapel was crowded with furniture, the altar, and the altar furnishings—including the six large silver statuettes of apostles that are mentioned in the 1553 palace inventory as belonging in Eleonora's chapel.

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CHAPTER FIVE

THE

ALTARPIECES

The altar wall of the Chapel of Eleonora as we see it today is its revised version, with Bronzino's altarpiece replaced by his replica of 1553 and the original altar wings by his Annunciation of 1564 (see Plate 9). The initial installation, in which the Lamentation was set between St. John the Baptist and St. Cosmas, can be partially reconstructed (Fig. 91). The altar wall ensemble recalls the Renaissance polyptych, but Bronzino's transformation of this traditional genre is almost complete. The altarpiece, instead of being freestanding (which it could not have been in any case in the restricted space of Eleonora's chapel), hangs on the wall. Outside its simple gilt frames are narrow painted frames that have been set behind both the Active stone architecture (arches identical to those of the other walls) and also behind the plane of David and the Sibyl, whose cartouches are painted so as to appear to overlap them. Thus, the "wings" of the altar cannot close, but are locked open behind the painted architecture. The upper, arched, portion of the Lamentation is the counterpart of the lunette of a more conventional altarpiece, and it reads as part of the wall's upper zone. King David, The Erythraean Sibyl, St. John the Baptist, and St. Cosmas The prophets (see Plate 12) are a contrasting pair: David is a bearded old man of the type that first appears in Bronzino's art as the shepherd with bagpipes in his

45

[AMIHVKT V. .','. MI M 11 I'UJI » W N V M R M V T B V ^ R OMNIA

FIGURE 9 1 .

Nativity

C h a p e l o f E l e o n o r a , r e c o n s t r u c t i o n o f the first i n s t a l l a t i o n o f t h e altar w a l l .

(see F i g . 55) and then throughout the Joseph tapestries; the Sibyl is an

idealized heroine type w h o reappears as Justice in his tapestry o f 1545 (see F i g . 103). T h e s e figures also relate to the cast o f characters in the wall frescoes: D a v i d is like the patriarch in Moses Appointing Joshua (see Plate 6), and the cool blonde prophetess closely resembles her counterparts a m o n g the I s r a e l i t e s — t h e dead w o m a n at the lower right o f The Brazen Serpent (see Fig. 74) or the w o m a n w i t h the c r y i n g child in Moses Striding the Roc\ (see Plate 25). T h e s e figures are in fresco and thus seem to belong to the space created by the chapel's fictive architecture; they also project out into the viewer's space f r o m their c r a m p e d niches, the Sibyl leaning her book of prophecies against the f r a m e o f the Lamentation.

T h i s strongly illusionistic m o d e is related to that o f saints o f the

vault. D a v i d , for example, sits at an angle, his leg and foot pushing f o r w a r d out o f his space m u c h as do the limbs o f St. John (see Plate 19) and Brother L e o (see

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Plate 17). In a reversal of our expectations, these figures, drawn from the distant past of the Old Testament, are vividly illusionistic presences. Like characters escaped from the stories of Moses, they behave in a "realistic" mode, turning and peering down from above the altarpiece to contemplate its scene of the Lamentation. This motif of figures viewing an altarpiece from above may reflect that of the tondi flanking Pontormo's altarpiece in the Capponi Chapel, where St. John (at the left, like Bronzino's David) gazes down at the Lamentation (but the panel is now wrongly installed, rotated so that the saint looks up); yet Bronzino has achieved an illusionism to which Pontormo did not aspire. St. John the Baptist (see Plate 10) is on the same scale as David, but in contrast to the vivid reality of the Old Testament king above him, the saint is a remote and artificial presence. He is a newly elegant male type in Bronzino's art, with a face that suggests the high-strung but veiled sensibility of the male characters in his altarpieces of the early 1550s such as the Christ in Limbo, where Bronzino repeated this physical type as St. John the Baptist, as Adam, and as Christ (see Fig. 10). Bronzino has placed the saint's strongly sculptural form in an extremely restricted space and further immobilized him by the forced flatness that we have seen in some of the figures of the vault. His angular pose, with its strong diagonal accents, is also emphasized by its repetition in St. John the Evangelist in the Lamentation) But most notably, St. John the Baptist is a figura serpentinata, signaling Bronzino's rapid move in the mid-1540s away from a naturalistic figure style to a figural type of abstraction and artificiality. Even more than the nude with the urn in The Gathering of Manna (see Plate 26), painted shortly before this panel, St. John exhibits a tension between sculptural mass and flatness—the simultaneous emphasis on and denial of three-dimensionality that is one of the key conventions of Maniera. This paradoxical quality relates to the issue of the paragone, mentioned in connection with some of the figures in the chapel frescoes. St. John, whose torso is twisted unnaturally to bring it parallel with his bent leg and arm (and thus to show an expanse of his muscular back), seems almost a demonstration of the painter's challenge to the sculptor's ability to depict multiple views. This manipulation can be seen in a comparison with a possible source for this figure, Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving The Baptism of Christ (Fig. 92X2 There, the Baptist kneels with his cross angled over his left shoulder and looks to the right much as does Bronzino's saint; he holds the cup that he has just filled with water from the stream; Bronzino's saint has placed the cup at his feet. But Bronzino has "im-

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FIGURE 92.

Marcantonio Raimondi, The Baptism of Christ (engraving).

proved" on his model in accord with Maniera taste by revealing more of the back and turning it parallel to the picture plane, fashioning it—now nude—as a quotation from the Belvedere Torso (see Fig. 68). The technique and pigments Bronzino used in this panel are conventional.3 There is an underdrawing and there are various pentimenti, the most significant one being a change in the position of the saint's right hand, which was originally turned more inward; minor changes can be seen in the position of the back and the leg.4 Bronzino used ochers, umbers, and siennas in the flesh tones and hair, with lead white and vermilion in the lighter areas, and, for the saint's drapery, a transparent red lake directly on top of the white ground; in its pink areas this red is mixed with lead white, at times with a very thin glaze of the pure lake on top. The brown area below St. John's left hand was originally green, which would have picked up the greens in the Lamentation? For the background, Bronzino used azurite on top of an underlayer of reddish brown earth pigment, a technique

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that he often employed to achieve a more intense color, as in the backgrounds of such portraits as Eleonora di Toledo with Her Son Giovanni (see Fig. 23). While there can be no discussion of the style of the lost St. Cosmas, the composition and color scheme of the work may be deduced by comparison with St. John and the angel of the Annunciation, almost identical in their composition, and by analogy with the Virgin Annunciate, which replaced it (see Plate 14). In the angel Bronzino closely followed the pose of St. John: both face inward toward the Lamentation, and their flattened forms and the zigzag pattern of their limbs echo the diagonal accents of King David above. As is true of many of Bronzino's later variants on his earlier ideas, however, the angel's composition is greatly simplified, with St. John's complex torsion eliminated and the figure presented more in profile. It seems reasonable to suppose that St. Cosmas was a mirror-image pendant to St. John and that the Virgin Annunciate similarly reflects that saint's pose. St. Cosmas, then, would have been a flattened figure, the body turned and compressed frontally to balance the inward-turned St. John; his pose probably echoed the diagonal position of the Sibyl above, with the left arm, like the Virgin's in the replacement panel, held across his body. The colors of St. Cosmas are also not difficult to imagine. Bronzino would have followed the tradition of dressing the saint in red to signal his martyrdom; and since St. John's drapery is a deep red, he probably used a lighter shade for Cosmas's robes (as he did for the dress of the Virgin Annunciate). Indeed, such a play of deep crimson to the left of an altarpiece against orangy red on the right would have echoed a favorite color scheme of Pontormo's, first seen in the draperies of his St. John the Evangelist and St. Michael of 1519 (Pontorme, S. Michele).6

The Lamentation Bronzino had developed a personal style for devotional works in modest-scale paintings of the late 1520s such as the Washington Holy Family (see Fig. 64) and The Dead Christ with the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene (Fig. 93)/ and later works such as the Panciatichi Holy Family. He successfully transformed this style into a monumental mode in the chapel Lamentation, which finds him at the height of his powers (see Plate 11). With its gleaming sculptural forms, its intense yet glacial colors, and its finely controlled line, it is an opulent, precious object, even more jewel-like than the frescoes among which it is set. As Bronzino's most brilliant

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FIGURE 93.

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Dead Christ with the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene.

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Uffizi.

FIGURE 94.

Pietro Perugino, Lamentation,

Pitti.

FIGURE 95.

Andrea del Sarto, Lamentation,

Pitti.

essay in religious painting for his Medici patrons, it has justly been seen as the most elaborate demonstration of a personal style that made him the favored court painter of Duke Cosimo in the 1540s. Although this altarpiece is a work of the utmost modernity for its time, it is profoundly rooted in the representational traditions of the Pietà altarpiece in Florence. Its composition derives from a familiar type of Pietà, or more properly—because of the expansion of the group beyond the Virgin and the dead Christ—Lamentation. 8 This type is monumentally exemplified by Pietro Perugino's altarpiece of 1495 from the Vallombrosan convent of S. Chiara (Fig. 94), Andrea del Sarto's high altarpiece for S. Piero a Luco of 1525 (Fig. 95),9 and Pontormo's fresco of 1523 at the Certosa di Galluzzo (Fig. 96).10 The dependency of Bronzino's Lamentation on these works becomes especially clear if we note that

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5

1

FIGURE 96.

Jacopo da Empoli after Jacopo da Pontormo,

FIGURE 97.

Lamentation. Certosa di Galluzzo.

Lamentation (without the lunette). Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts.

without the lunette, his composition has a square format and a lucid symmetrical disposition of its figures (Fig. 97). Moreover, Bronzino has quoted from Perugino's painting the holy woman standing at the center of the picture who raises her arms and looks down at the dead Christ. In these Lamentations, as well as in Bronzino's own previous essays in the subject—the Uffizi Dead Christ (see Fig. 93) and the Mercatalle tabernacle (see Fig. 49)—Christ is placed, reclining or seated, in front of the Virgin. However, in the chapel altarpiece Bronzino departed from this iconography, using the alternative motif of Christ held in the Virgin's lap—a representation that had been given authoritative sculptural definition by Michelangelo in the St. Peter's Pietà (Fig. 98).1' And he also consulted the major earlier interpretation of Michelangelo's work in Florence, Pontormo's Lamentation-Entombment

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in the Capponi Chapel

C H A P E L

FIGURE

98.

Michelangelo, Pietà. Vatican, St. Peter's.

(Fig. 99). Indeed, Pontormo's altarpiece has often been cited as the fundamental model for Bronzino's painting—which has consequently been read as a tribute to his master's work. It is true that Bronzino's St. John paraphrases Pontormo's youth supporting the body of Christ. More than has been recognized, however, Bronzino in his painting critiqued Pontormo's masterpiece. He translated its idiom into the elegant and self-conscious language of mid-century Florentine painting: Pontormo's spiraling, weightless, and unstable vertical composition has been replaced by a fixed, symmetrical, sculptural, and essentially horizontal tableau, the more exact prototypes of which are the Lamentations of the Perugino-Sarto type mentioned above. Bronzino's Lamentation may also be understood in the context of the competitive ambiance of Duke Cosimo's court in the 1540s, of other works commissioned

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FIGURE 99.

Jacopo da Pontormo, Lamentation-Entombment. Chapel.

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S. Felicita, Capponi

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by the duke for the decoration of the Palazzo, and of other artists w h o vied for these commissions. Salviati, particularly, comes to mind: both his Dini Chapel Deposition of 1548 (see Fig. 9) and his suavely elegant tapestry of the Lamentation (see Fig. 43), which (as I have suggested) might have hung temporarily in Eleonora's chapel after the exportation of Bronzino's altarpiece, were competitive responses to the Chapel of Eleonora Lamentation.

T h e tapestry, an alternative

solution for the subject, with only four figures, was clearly designed with knowledge of Bronzino's painting, whose holy woman in profile Salviati paraphrased in the Virgin of the tapestry. After the installation in 1553 of Bronzino's second Lamentation,

Salviati's work, no longer needed in Eleonora's chapel, may then

have been installed in the nearby Chapel of the Priors (see Fig. 15), where it would have invited comparison between the styles of the duke's rival artists.12 There was even an element of competition in the original commission of the chapel altarpiece.13 In November 1542, while Bronzino was working on the chapel's frescoes, its altarpiece had apparently not yet been assigned to him. This is surprising: lacking evidence to the contrary, we would assume that Bronzino had been commissioned in 1540 to carry out the entire decoration of the chapel. But there are many instances in which frescoes and altarpieces of a chapel were by different artists, and it is worth recalling that in both the Chapel of the Priors (Fig. 15) and the chapel of the Palazzo Medici (Fig. 13; an important precedent for that of Eleonora, as I have noted) the frescoes and the altarpiece were by different artists. In any event, there is documentary evidence that in 1542 Bandinelli was aggressively trying to secure the commission of the altarpiece for himself. O n 9 November one of Cosimo's secretaries, Agnolo Marzi de' Medici, replied to a letter from Bandinelli, referring apparently to a drawing Bandinelli had submitted for the altarpiece of Eleonora's chapel (doc. 2): Risponderò alla Signoria Vostra quanto Sua Ecc.'" ha resoluto sopra la lettera che ella mi ha scritto. Et prima per conto della pittura della cappella di Sua Illustrissima Signora Consorte, gl'è sodisfatto lo avvertire ne ha Vostra Signoria fatto. (I shall report to you, Sir, what the duke has decided in response to the letter you wrote me. First of all, regarding the painting for the chapel of His Excellency's wife, I inform you that he is satisfied with your work.)

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O n 20 November D u k e Cosimo himself answered a letter from Bandinelli—apparently having seen his modello for the altarpiece—saying that he intended to have Bronzino use Bandinelli's design for the Pietà because Eleonora liked it so much (doc. 3): Haviamo visto le vostre de' 12, in risposta delle quali vi si dice che'l disegno della Pietà piace alla S" nostra Consorte, et per farlo mettere in opera, come merita in vero l'opera et fatica vostra, s'ordinerà al Bronzino che le dipinga lui et obbedisca voi in questo per quanto sia di bisogno. (We have seen your letters of the twelfth, and in response we indicate that our consort likes the drawing of the Pietà and, to have it executed as the work and your effort deserve, we shall order Bronzino to paint it and to comply with you in this matter.)

There is no further mention of Bandinelli's name in connection with the Lamentation, which Bronzino completed and signed by July 1545. However, in Bronzino's letter to Riccio of 22 August (quoted in Chapter 3) there is a revealing remark. Bronzino tells Riccio that he wants time to do some preparatory drawings but that the duke has said to him: "Io la [la pala d'altare] vog[l]io in quel modo proprio come sta quella, et non la vog[l]io più bella. . . . Non m'entrare in altra inventione, perchè quella mi piace." ("I want the [altarpiece] exactly like the other, and I don't want it more beautiful. Don't introduce any new ideas, because I like that one.")

Bronzino had evidently been instructed by Cosimo to follow Bandinelli's "inventione" a second t i m e — a n d he did so in the replica of 1553 (see Plate 9). Bandinelli was involved in the genesis of the chapel Lamentation in a way that was characteristic of him and of his modus operandi in relation to his ducal patrons and his fellow artists. T h e sculptor had won a special place of favor with the ducal couple, particularly Eleonora. 14 H e was also very aggressive in soliciting

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commissions from them, competing for their favor with Tribolo and Cellini.15 For example, in 1540, Cosimo gave Bandinelli the commission for the monument to Giovanni delle Bande Nere, planned for the Neroni Chapel in S. Lorenzo, even though it had already been assigned to Tribolo.16 Bandinelli then proposed himself for the important project of Cosimo's udienza in the Sala Grande, and in 1547 he persuaded the duke to accept his plans for the choir of the Duomo. 17 Cellini later reported that the duchess was protective of Bandinelli, securing commissions for him such as the Neptune fountain in the Piazza della Signoria and acquiring the Pazzi Chapel in SS. Annunziata for him so that he could erect his tomb monument there.18 It would have been entirely in character for Bandinelli to solicit the commission for the chapel altarpiece from Cosimo by way of a modello. A prolific draftsman—already famous in his time—who especially prized the art of disegno,19 he was in the habit of showing drawings to Cosimo and Eleonora. Vasari mentions Bandinelli's practice in connection with a number of commissions, such as the choir of the Duomo, where he writes of the "molti disegni portato dal Bandinello al duca Cosimo" (many drawings brought by Bandinelli to Duke Cosimo).20 There is also correspondence between Bandinelli and the duke (or his secretaries) from the early 1540s indicating that the artist was seeking other commissions in the same fashion.21 For example, a letter from Ugolino Grifoni to Riccio amusingly evokes a moment at court when Duke Cosimo evaded the persistent Bandinelli: [Il Duca Cosimo] nell'uscire di camera li venne visto il Bandinello, et subito si ritirò, facendoli intendere per il Forlì che non era tempo di vedere disegni, benché esso per captare audientia grata li havessi fatto intendere per il medesimo Forlì havere cose bellissime da mostrare.22 (As [Duke Cosimo] was leaving his room, he saw Bandinelli approaching. He immediately withdrew and had Forlì tell him that there wasn't time to look at drawings, even though [Bandinelli], to assure himself a receptive hearing, had let the duke know, through Forlì, that he had some beauties to show.)

The most tangible evidence of Bandinelli's interest in painting a Lamentation for his ducal patrons is his large black chalk modello of the subject (Fig. 100).23

FIGURE

IOO.

Baccio B a n d i n e l l a study for a L a m e n t a t i o n w i t h D u k e C o s i m o d e ' Medici a n d E l e o n o r a di T o l e d o . A m h e r s t , Mass., private collection.

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This drawing is an elaborate twelve-figured composition containing a number of Bandinelli's stock figures (the holy women tearing their hair, Nicodemus holding the crown of thorns and the nails of the Crucifixion, Joseph of Arimathea as a self-portrait of the artist, etc.); a group of angels, one of whom holds the chalice and host, floats above. But its exceptional feature is the retardataire motif of donors kneeling to either side of the scene. To the left we recognize the profile of a youthful, beardless Cosimo, as he appeared no later than 1540.24 To the right is a stylishly dressed kneeling woman with long blonde hair who, though idealized, can only be Eleonora. Her presence, the duke's clean-shaven face, and the fact that Bandinelli returned from Rome in 1540 point to a date for this presentation drawing in that year.25 It thus cannot have been the drawing for the chapel altarpiece that Bandinelli showed to the ducal couple in 1542, a possibility that is also ruled out by its rectangular format, which suggests that it was preparatory to a relief. But it gives strong evidence of the sculptor's desire to depict such a subject for his ducal patrons, an interest apparently rekindled in 1542 with the possibility of the commission for the chapel altarpiece. Although Bandinelli was primarily a sculptor, he was also a painter; thus an attempt by him to obtain a commission for a painting, rather than a sculpture, would not have been unusual. Indeed, in 1525 Bandinelli had been given a major painting commission by the Medici for two frescoes, The Martyrdom of SS. Cosmas and Damian and The Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo on the lateral walls of the choir of S. Lorenzo. The project was aborted (Pontormo ultimately painted these walls), but Marcantonio's engraving and Bandinelli's compositional study for the S. Lorenzo (Fig. ioi) 26 attest to his invention of a complex and monumental istoria. Because Bandinelli's drawings were used regularly by contemporaries, the duke's suggestion that Bronzino follow one for the altarpiece is less astonishing than it might seem. There is evidence that Bandinelli, like his great model Michelangelo, programmatically had his cartoons executed by other painters. Vasari relates that in late 1526 or early 1527 Bandinelli, having decided that he no longer wanted to paint because his technique had been criticized, turned over the execution of the cartoon of a Lamentation to a young assistant; again, toward the end of his life Bandinelli made cartoons of four Old Testament subjects, to be painted by Andrea del Migna and given to Duchess Eleonora to decorate rooms in the Palazzo Pitti.27 One of his main activities as early as 1 5 1 5 was the preparation of drawings to be engraved by others, such as those for The Massacre of the Innocents

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59

FIGURE

IOI.

Baccio Bandinelli, study for The Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo.

Paris, Musée du

Louvre.

of ca. 1 5 2 0 - 2 1 , The Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo, and The Birth of the Virgin of 1540;28 and his drawings were used outside his own workshop, by painters such as Bachiacca and Allori, to whom he had given them.29 What of Bronzino's use of invenzioni by contemporaries? Among several instances in the mid-i540s, the most precisely demonstrable examples are his tapestry designs for Duke Cosimo. Bronzino used a Salviati drawing (Fig. 102)30 for his Justice Liberating Innocence (Fig. 103); he adapted a drawing for The Selling of Joseph by Salviati, obviously planned for one of the narrow tapestries of the Joseph series (Fig. 104),31 for his tapestry of the same subject (Fig. 105); and he used a Salviati drawing (Fig. 106) as the basis for his Allegory of the Dynasty of Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo of 1549 (Fig. 107).32 Bronzino also exploited Bandinelli drawings (and prints after them), having presumably been given access to them by the artist.33 The most conspicuous instance is his late Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo (see Fig. 47), painted in the very church for which Bandinelli's own composition had been destined many years earlier (see

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FIGURE 104

{left). Francesco Salviati, study for The Selling of Joseph. Uffizi.

FIGURE 105.

The Selling of Joseph (tapestry). Rome, Palazzo del Quirinale.

F i g . 101). 34 Besides the fresco's similarity to the drawing in its architectural setting and figural groupings, the nude with the bellows to the lower left of the saint and the standing figure directly above him are similar to Bandinelli's compositional study but do not appear in the published engraving. Bronzino turned again to Bandinelli for inspiration for a Lamentation he painted for Cosimo in 1 5 6 1 (Fig. 108).35 T h e figure of St. John the Evangelist, w h o kneels holding the dead Christ, alludes to Nicodemus in the Pieta group that the sculptor had recently made for his own tomb in S S . Annunziata (Fig. 109).36 Bronzino's painting was finished in 1 5 6 1 , the year after Bandinelli's death, and its allusion may well have been a tribute to his friend.

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FIGURE

FIGURE

106.

107.

Francesco Salviati, study for the Arms of Duke Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum.

Allegory of the Dynasty of Duke Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo (tapestry). Pitti.

FIGURE

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IN

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108.

CHAPEL

Lamentation.

Accademia.

muKjtnEf.

FIGURE 109.

B a c c i o B a n d i n e l l i , Dead Christ with Nicodemus.

SS. A n n u n z i a t a .

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165

FIGURE

no.

Perino del Vaga, study for The Preaching Albertina.

of St. John the Baptist. Vienna,

Unless the drawing Bandinelli showed to Cosimo and Eleonora comes to light, we will never know to what extent Bronzino followed it in painting the altarpiece of the Chapel of Eleonora. Contemporary practice (aside from the examples I have already given) may, however, be helpful. Before concluding that Bronzino followed a finished modello by Bandinelli in which all details were precisely worked out, we can look at how Jacopino del Conte used a compositional drawing by Perino del Vaga (Fig. n o ) for his Preaching of St. John the Baptist (Fig. in). 3 7 The composition is recognizably that of the drawing, yet the interpretation is free: Jacopino brought the figure of St. John down into the crowd so that the composition is less airy and open; certain figures (like the woman in the left foreground) are omitted, others are added (the standing man to the right), and still others (like the seated man to the right) are changed in detail. This contemporaneous example shows how a drawing could be the basis for a painting—and even determine its style—yet not be identical to it.

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MHMlik

FIGURE

HI.

Jacopino del C o n t e , The Preaching

of St. John the Baptist.

A L T A R P I E C E S

R o m e , S. Giovanni Decollate.

FIGURE I

12.

Baccio Bandinella Dead Christ with art Angel. S. Croce.

Against this background, let us now consider Bronzino's altarpiece (see Plate 11). It yields evidence supporting the attribution of its invenzione to Bandinelli, for the strikingly Bandinellian aspects of the composition go beyond the general affinity between the two artists' styles. First among these are the insistently sculptural figures, particularly the dead Christ. Although the pose of the figure is ultimately derived from Michelangelo's Pietà (see Fig. 98), the refined physical type seems almost a painter's translation of Bandinelli's aesthetic, as in his Dead Christ with an Angel (Fig. 112). Moreover, the classicizing angels on either side of Bronzino's painting, especially the one with the chalice (Fig. 113), resemble the angel supporting Bandinelli's Christ (Fig. 114). But even more than this work, Bandinelli's Dead Christ with Nicodemus comes to mind (see Fig. 109). The raising and display of the overscale body of Christ as a eucharistic offering in both this sculpture and Bronzino's painting are profoundly similar.'8 The postures, heads, and elaborate headdresses of the four holy women to the left in Bronzino's painting are also Bandinellian (Plate 27). They recall figures such as a woman in the right panel of his Birth of the Virgin of 1519 (Fig. 115). 39 They also resemble figures in works by Bandinelli contemporary with the chapel altarpiece. The idealized female heads (now badly damaged), flattened in profile all'antica, in the relief Giovanni delle Bande Nere Receiving Prisoners on the base of the monument to Duke Cosimo's father (Fig. 116) are prototypes. Numerous

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FIGURE I

16.

Baccio Bandinelli, Giovanni delle Bande Nere Receiving Prisoners, detail, women. Piazza S. Lorenzo.

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FIGURE I 1 7 .

Baccio Bandinelli, study of mourning women. Paris, Musée du Louvre.

drawings of such figures by Bandinelli are also suggestive, particularly one of mourning women preparatory to an unexecuted relief for the same monument (Fig. 117).40 Another Bandinellian aspect of Bronzino's altarpiece is the trio of men that balances the holy women to the right (Plate 28). It recalls images of the three ages of man that Bandinelli drew a number of times, often (as in the Lamentation trio) representing the heads respectively in full, three-quarter, and profile views. The most finished example of this conceit among his drawings is one of three male

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F i g u r e i i 8.

Baccio Bandinelli, studies of three male heads. New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.

heads (Fig. n8). 41 Less sculptural in concept and more suggestively like Bronzino's painted group is a sheet entirely covered with male heads arranged in three trios, each of which has two foreground heads partially overlapping one in the background (Fig. 119).42 In these drawings of juxtaposed heads Bandinelli's selfportrait (or an image referring to his own appearance) is featured at the center, implying a comparison of his image with the others. The reference to portraiture in Bandinelli's three-ages drawings is also germane to the conceit of the trio in the chapel Lamentation (see Chapter 6).

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FIGURE I 19.

B a c c i o B a n d i n e l l i , studies o f m a l e heads. S t o c k h o l m , N a t i o n a l M u s e u m .

A compositional m o t i f in Bronzino's Lamentation

also suggests Bandinelli's

taste. A s has often been remarked, the sculptor d r e w many ideas f r o m Donatello's pulpit reliefs in S. L o r e n z o , particularly the Lamentation,

a crowded

scene

peopled by w a i l i n g w o m e n w i t h their arms flung high and other m o u r n i n g w o m e n seated. Bandinelli incorporated these motifs into such compositions as his Lamentation

with Duke

Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo (see F i g . 100)

and his sketch-model o f 1530 for a relief o f the Descent f r o m the Cross for

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r73

FIGURE 120.

Baccio Bandinelli, The Descentfrom

the Cross. San Marino, Museo

Nazionale.

Charles V (Fig. 120).43 One of these Donatellian motifs, especially significant in relation to the chapel altarpiece, appears in a pen study probably done in connection with that relief (Fig. 121).44 Standing to the right in the drawing is the bearded Joseph of Arimathea, with lowered head, looking at the nails of the Crucifixion, as Joseph does in Donatello's Lamentation (Fig. 122). This same Donatellian figure, in an elegant Maniera guise, appears in Bronzino's Lamentation in

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FIGURE 1 2 1 .

Baccio Bandinelli, study for a Descent from the Cross. London, K a t z Collection.

the white-bearded Joseph of Arimathea, whose similarity to the Donatello model extends even beyond the motif of the nails to the angle of Joseph's head and the position of his left hand. Finally, the very subject of the chapel altarpiece that apparently was still to be commissioned in late 1542 would have appealed to Bandinelli, w h o more than any other cinquecento Florentine artist had taken the Pieta as his special theme.

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FIGURE 122.

Donatello, Lamentation, detail, Joseph of Arimathea. S. Lorenzo.

Indeed, he had essayed the subject a number of times before 1542 but had never carried a work to completion. Besides the Lamentation

with Cosimo and Eleo-

nora, the most important of these works was a large picture projected in the late 1520s. Vasari described it as una tavola assai grande per la chiesa di Cestello [S. Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi] e n'aveva fatto un cartone molto bello, dentrovi Cristo morto e le Marie intorno e Niccodemo con altre figure.45 (a panel of considerable size for the church of Cestello; and for it he did a beautiful cartoon of the dead Christ surrounded by the Marys, Nicodemus, and other figures.)

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Vasari goes on to note that Bandinelli gave this cartoon to Agnolo, brother of Franciabigio, to execute; however, it was never completed.46 The composition of the unfinished Cestello altarpiece is probably reflected in a pen modello by Bandinelli, which may have been the type of drawing that he later showed to Duke Cosimo in soliciting the commission for the chapel altarpiece (Fig. 123).47 Although it does not depict exactly the same subject, certain figurai motifs in it are strikingly similar to those in Bronzino's Lamentation: the putto holding the curtain to the right in the drawing resembles the putto to the right in the upper section of Bronzino's picture, and the unusual motif of the symmetrically placed angels, looking out of the scene to the right and left, occurs in the angels with the chalice and veil.

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If elements in the Chapel of Eleonora altarpiece seem to depend on Bandinelli's design, the work as a whole is strikingly characteristic of Bronzino's own mature style of the mid-i540S. T h e Lamentation maniera" (beautiful

style).48

is a paradigm of Vasari's "bella

It is a prime example of Bronzino's dedication to re-

finement and artifice, and in this respect similar to the contemporaneous Allegory of Venus (see Fig. n ) , although it is far less coolly abstract and lapidary than its secular counterpart. T h e bella maniera is manifest in Bronzino's interpretation of the subject, his composition and figures, and his color—or, as these aspects of painting were termed by his contemporaries, invenzione, disegno, and colore?9 For the mid-sixteenth-century Florentine painter, the invenzione of a work like the chapel altarpiece involved realizing the potential of the given devotional subject (in this case, the Lamentation): its interpretation, the choice of episodes and characters, the emotional tenor of the figures, and their deportment. 50 Although Vasari's comments on invenzione do not specify religious works, they were first formulated in the mid-1540s (for the 1550 edition of the Vite) and presumably reflect the attitudes of contemporaries such as Bronzino who were painting at the time. In discussing invenzione Vasari emphasizes, almost to the exclusion of all else, qualities related to narrative incident and to the disposition of figures: E da ciò [buona maniera] nasce l'invenzione, la quale fa mettere insieme in istoria le figure a quattro, a sei, a dieci, a venti, talmente che si viene a formare le battaglie e l'altre cose grandi dell'arte. Questa invenzione vuol in sé una convenevolezza formata di concordanza e d'obbedienza; che s'una figura si muove per salutare un'altra, non si faccia la salutata voltarsi indietro, avendo a rispondere, e con questa similitudine tutto il resto.51 (And from [good style] is born invention, according to which the figures in a scene—whether four, or six, or ten, or twenty—are arranged so as to shape the oppositions and other major aspects of art. Such invention should have a propriety based on concord and agreement; thus, if one figure is about to greet another, the one being greeted, and thus having to respond, should not be posed with his back turned—and so on throughout the entire work.) Vasari requires, moreover, that the painting "sia piena di cose variate e differenti l'una da l'altra" (be full of things that are varied and different one from the other),

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PLATES

16-33

PLATE

17.

Chapel of Eleonora, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata.

PLATE I

9.

Chapel of Eleonora, St. John the Evangelist on Patmos.

PLATE 20.

Chapel of Eleonora, putto to the left of St. Michael.

PLATE 2 1 .

Chapel of Eleonora, putto to the right of St. Michael.

&

PLATE

22.

Study for The Crossing of the Red Sea. Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffìzi.

PLATE 23.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Brazen Serpent, detail, figures on the right.

PLATE

26.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Gathering of Manna, detail, lower section.

PLATE

27.

Lamentation, Besançon, detail, holy women.

PLATE

28.

Lamentation, Besançon, detail, three men.

PLATE 29.

Lamentation,

Besançon, detail, angels.

PLATE 30.

Chapel of Eleonora, Moses Appointing

Joshua.

PLATE

31.

Lamentation, Besançon, detail, head of a holy woman.

PLATE

32.

Chapel of Eleonora, Moses Appointing Joshua, detail, woman to the right.

PLATE 33.

Joseph in Prison and the Pharaoh's Banquet R o m e , Palazzo del Quirinale.

(tapestry).

and that the artist "debbe distinguere i gesti e l'attitudini" (ought to distinguish the gestures and attitudes) of his figures—this point is elaborated at length—so that, above all, the painting will have "una concordanza unita" (a unified harmoniousness) and will be "sempre accompagnata con una grazia di facilità" (always accompanied by a grace of execution). Bronzino's Lamentation involves no narrative, but it exemplifies precisely the qualities Vasari singles out—decorum, a highly self-conscious variety, and the transmutation of religious feeling into grazia. Withdrawing from the dramatic and tragic potential of the subject, Bronzino presented it with artificiality and refinement. For example, the grief of St. John is expressed less by his facial expression than by the exquisite commingling of Christ's chestnut curls with his own light brown hair (see Fig. 113). Realism is scrupulously avoided: there is no evidence of suffering in the marmoreal perfection of Christ's body, no overt display of grief among the mourners. Bronzino's Lamentation speaks a language that is (to borrow John Shearman's characterization of Maniera) "articulate, intricate, and sophisticated, . . . a silver-tongued language of beauty and caprice, not one of violence, incoherence, and despair."52 Its syntax is a frozen pathos. Emotions are controlled by the stylized attitudes and cool demeanor of the actors. Male and female mourners, young and older angels are contrasted; within each group, there is a careful distinction of type and affect. The solid triangle of motionless witnesses on the right contrasts with the rhythmic calligraphy of the bending, gesturing women to the left. The twelve mourners also manifest a refined artificiality of behavior; they display exquisite courtesy toward one another (the more remarkable for their close physical proximity), and their facial expressions convey the utmost civility—behavior that recalls Vasari's recommendations on convenevolezza (propriety). Although the triangle of figures closest to Christ—John, Mary, and the Magdalene—are gently sad in mien, only the frown of the angel carrying the cross (Plate 29) breaks through the suppressed emotional tenor of these mourners. Bronzino's Lamentation is also characteristic of Maniera in its emphasis on the symbolic ramifications of its subject. We already sense this in the deliberation with which Bronzino has arranged the figures in a pattern of diagonals that cross at the body of Christ. This design echoes both the saltire cross of the vault and the actual cross held by the angel above. Moreover, as in Pontormo's Capponi Chapel altarpiece (see Fig. 99)—and in contrast Perugino's and Sarto's represen-

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tations o f the subject (see Figs. 9 4 - 9 5 ) — t h e r e is no real setting here: t w o rocks and a single branch and leaf to the left define the foreground, and only the cloud bank separates the L a m e n t a t i o n f r o m the angels, w h o float against a blue sky like that o f the chapel vault. Further, B r o n z i n o has introduced symbolic figures into the scene w h o do not belong to the narrative but c o m m e n t on it: the five angels carrying the arma Christi (instruments o f the Passion) and the t w o angel-acolytes w h o flank the Pietà g r o u p , displaying a chalice and a veil. T h e s e last angels, w h o literally intrude into the L a m e n t a t i o n scene, with its characters d r a w n f r o m the Gospels, tend to displace the event to a symbolic realm (see C h a p t e r 6). Bronzino's Lamentation

is also a masterpiece o f mid-sixteenth-century devo-

tional painting in its perfection o f disegno and colore—without

both o f w h i c h , w e

learn f r o m Vasari's letter to Varchi, all a painter's efforts are in vain: E se un pittore disegna bene et i colori benissimo non adoperi, ha perso il tempo in tale arte; e se ben colorisca e disegno non abbia, il fin suo e vanissimo.53 ( Just as a painter who designs well but fails to use the finest colors wastes his time in art, one who uses colors well but has no [sense of] design will never get anywhere.)

T h e Lamentation

exhibits a masterly disegno worthy of the praise o f Vasari, w h o

called it a "cosa rarissima." 54 For in mid-sixteenth-century Florence disegno in a painting meant not only the d r a w i n g of c o n t o u r s — t h e draftsman's m o d e o f painting w i t h great emphasis on the subtlety and tension of line that B r o n z i n o had learned f r o m P o n t o r m o — b u t also the composition and proportions o f the figures.

It was a function o f bella maniera, as Vasari succinctly put it: "Il disegno

f u lo imitare il più bello della natura in tutte le figure" (Disegno was the imitation o f the most beautiful [aspects] of nature in all the figures).55 Bronzino's composition o f overlapping f o r m s — a t once sculptural and flattened parallel to the picture p l a n e — i s crafted like a giant relief. H i s virtuosity in handling these strata is such that five levels can be read f r o m " f o r e g r o u n d " to " b a c k g r o u n d " at each side o f the painting, yet the intricate design is also locked to the picture surface. Individual figures

are elegantly proportioned and exhibit the perfect language o f hand ges-

tures that Vasari mentions as a requisite of bella

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FIGURE 124.

S t u d y for the head o f a holy w o m a n . U f f i z i .

A l t h o u g h such a finely w r o u g h t painting was the result of carefully detailed preparation, only a single (and rather minor) study for it survives. T h i s is a black chalk d r a w i n g for the head o f the holy w o m a n at the center o f the composition (Fig. 124)." It is identical to the head as it appears in the X ray o f the painting, w h e r e the hair is similarly close to the head and there is no sign o f the full coiffure o f the final version. 58 Technical examination of the altarpiece reveals the presence o f m a n y other pcntimenti,

indicating that B r o n z i n o continued to m o d i f y

details o f the composition even after the first layer o f paint was in place. 59 For

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FIGURE 125.

Lamentation, detail, angel and the Magdalene. Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts.

example, the profile of the Magdalene (Fig. 125) was reworked, as can be seen in details from the infrared reflectogram showing Bronzino's underdrawing (Figs. 126-27). Finally, Bronzino's style in the altarpiece is characterized by a refinement, artifice, and abstraction of colore™ Even color and light are possessed of grazia and bella maniera; the artifice of Bronzino's modeling and color is comparable to that of his ornamental disegno and contributes equally to his "stylish style." Following the lead of Pontormo in the Capponi Chapel altarpiece (see Fig. 99)—and ultimately that of Michelangelo in the Doni tondo—Bronzino painted his altarpiece in the exquisite and artificial blond manner, with no deep shadows or softening chiaroscuro. There are no contemporary comments on the color of Bronzino's

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FIGURE 126.

Reflectogram of the Lamentation, detail, nose and eyes of the Magdalene (Laboratoire des Musées de France).

FIGURE 127.

Reflectogram of the Lamentation, detail, nose and mouth of the Magdalene (Laboratoire des Musées de France).

picture, but Vasari's precise r e m a r k s on Pontormo's individualistic use of a similar technique in his altarpiece m i g h t be applied to Bronzino's as well. H e says that in this w o r k P o n t o r m o a b a n d o n e d his f o r m e r way of painting, and, pensando a nuove cose, la [the altarpiece] condusse senz'ombre e con un colorito chiaro e tanto unito, che appena si conosce il lume dal mezzo ed il mezzo dagli • 61

scuri.

(thinking of new possibilities, he executed [the altarpiece] without shadows and with a pale and unified color, so that it is hard to distinguish the light from the halftones and the halftones from the shadows.)

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As in the wall frescoes, the colors Bronzino used in the Lamentation are luxuriously rich and of a jewel-like intensity. Indeed, as Marcia B. Hall has observed, the color scheme of the Lamentation, which at first seems inappropriate to its tragic theme, "signifies by its ornamental irreality a transcendent dimension," suggesting a celebration of the Redemption rather than the tragedy of death.62 The picture is given its essential coloristic character by its intense and luminous blues. Lapis lazuli predominates—in the background; in the robes of the Virgin, the Magdalene, and the holy woman holding the head of Christ; and in details such as Nicodemus's vase. Contemporaneously, Bronzino used such a blue for the background curtain in his Allegory of Venus, where it establishes a mood of hotcold eroticism (see Fig. 11). But here, icy blues and pearly flesh tones are complemented by warm pink-reds (the Magdalene's cloak and the dress of a holy woman to the left), echoing the red of the saints' draperies in the original altar wings. In the altarpiece, Bronzino does not indulge as often in the piquant and highly artificial color shifts that he uses in the frescoes. The most obvious cangianti here are in the angel-acolytes' draperies (shaded from green to lavender to yellow), the headdress of the holy woman in red (blue to green), the hat of the companion of Joseph and Nicodemus (blue to pink), and the angel's wings (blue to pink, red to yellow). Bronzino's typical refinement in the handling is also evident in the painting's exceptionally well preserved surface glazes (as contrasted with the overcleaned Allegory of Venus). The angels in the lunette are more fluidly painted than the figures below, with exquisite passages of reflected light, as on the face of the lower of the two angels carrying the column. The main scene is painted more solidly, but with a subtle alteration of textures that goes far beyond the finesse of even the most sensitively handled of Bronzino's earlier religious paintings, such as the Dead Christ with the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene (see Fig. 93). The frozen and polished surfaces of the body of Christ and the limbs and faces of the female mourners and the angel-acolytes are like marble. These effects are created by Bronzino's up-modeling technique, which emphasizes rilievo, for here—more exactly than in the frescoes—he imitates the effect of actual sculpture. This precision of detail is enhanced by the cool light that falls on the forms, giving everything in the painting, including the colors themselves, an unnatural clarity and purity. Moreover, passages of the painting, such as the metallic strands of the Magdalene's golden hair, have a sharp, miniaturist reality (see Fig. 125), as compared, for example, with the softer textures of her earlier counterpart.63 The three

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men to the right, however, are painted in a more realistic mode; their flesh is more rosy, their hair and garments softly textured (see Plate 28).

The Second Lamentation and the Annunciation Bronzino's second Lamentation,

installed in the chapel in 1553, was presumably

based on the same cartoon as the first, but the draftsmanship is less finely controlled, and the finesse of execution and subtlety of expression of the first version are lacking (see Plate 9). The mood of cool detachment and the ineffable grazia of the figures have also been lost: several of the mourners—notably the Virgin Mary and the holy woman in full face to the left—are depicted as older, and their expressions are more tinged with grief than those of their earlier counterparts. (There are also differences from the first panel in minor elements of the design, such as the vase carried by Nicodemus, which has a grotesque head for a handle instead of a golden athletic nude.) But the most significant change in the second Lamentation—one

that contrib-

utes to its sorrowful mood—is its radically different palette. In contrast to the intense colors and the predominant blue tonality of the first version, the colors of the second are deep and somber, without cangiantv, the Virgin's blue robe is dulled from a brown underpainting, which is also evident in the heavy, dark clouds above.64 The painting no longer complements the blond-manner Pontormesque colors of the surrounding frescoes, nor is it in tune with the celebratory mode of the chapel decoration in general. Although the central panel of the second altarpiece duplicates that of the first—at least in composition—the new wings that Bronzino painted in 1564 replace the patron saints of Florence and the Medici with the conventional altarpiece theme of the Annunciation (see Plate 14). As I have noted, the composition of the angel repeats that of St. John (see Plate 10), and the Virgin's serpentine composition presumably echoes that of the lost St. Cosmas. In every other respect, however, these panels depart drastically from the style of the original altar wings. Instead of the abstract setting in the St. John, here the Virgin's prie-dieu, book, and lectern jut out at angles, without, however, defining an actual space. The color scheme of the panels is still based on red—Gabriel's dark red wings contrast with Mary's lighter red dress—but these rich, warm tones are now juxtaposed with a sharp greenish yellow (the angel's wings) and a glacial bluish white (Mary's man-

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FIGURE 128.

Chapel of Eleonora, Annunciate Virgin, detail, head.

tie). Moreover, both the angel and the Virgin lack the grazia and complexity of the figures in the first altarpiece; the simplified forms, drained of their expressiveness, retain only the control of their earlier counterparts. The facial types—the stylized downcast head of the Virgin (Fig. 128) and the Roman profile of the angel—are the standardized female types of Bronzino's later painting, such as Noli me tangere, dated 1561 (Paris, Musée du Louvre) or even The Raising of the Daughter of Jairus of 1 5 7 1 - 7 2 (S. Maria Novella).65 The only surviving drawing for Bronzino's later work in the chapel is a black chalk study for the Virgin (Fig. 129).66 In its uninflected line and lack of vitality, this careful modello (squared for enlargement) is akin to the painting for which it was made, and it contrasts sharply with the subtlety and vitality of Bronzino's earlier studies for the chapel frescoes.

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T h e r e must have been a variety o f reasons for the changes in style and m o o d in Bronzino's later paintings for the C h a p e l o f Eleonora. T h e m u t e d palette o f the Lamentation

is not generic to Bronzino's art of the early 1550s; there is nothing

dark in the colors o f either Christ in Limbo

or the Resurrection,

for example. T h e

contrast between this w o r k and the original altarpiece m i g h t have been a response to the climate in the ducal household, created by Eleonora's advanced tuberculosis, w h i c h Pagni suggests in a letter o f 1551 (just w h e n B r o n z i n o w o u l d have been painting this picture): "Il suo male è grande et sarà ogni giorno m a g g i o r e " (her illness is serious and seems m o r e so every day).67 T h e s e stylistic changes and those noted in the second altar w i n g s , painted after the duchess's death, are also signposts o f a shift in style in Florentine painting that came about in the w a k e o f the C o u n t e r - R e f o r m a t i o n — a m o v e away f r o m the Maniera that became fully evident in Bronzino's altarpieces o f the early 1560s such as the A c c a d e m i a

Lamentation

(see F i g . 108) and the Nativity o f 1564 (Pisa, S. Stefano). 68 T h e less sensuous color and the somber, almost harsh, forms and grieving faces of the second La mentation reveal a search for a n e w expressiveness, inimical to Maniera, that may have been an early response in Florentine art to the spirit o f r e f o r m m a d e explicit by the C o u n c i l o f Trent. T h e figures in the Annunciation

also seem to reflect a shift

in taste toward the conventionally devotional; they are painted in a newly chaste, pure style that w o u l d characterize m u c h later sixteenth-century painting in F l o r ence. A l l these developments announce the demise in Bronzino's art o f the bella maniera.

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CHAPTER SIX

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WALL

Prophets and Prophecies The theme of prophecy resonates throughout the decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora. It is signaled in the basamento frieze, where Bronzino painted winged putto heads—ancient emblems of prophecy. It is announced on the altar wall in the figures of King David and the Erythraean Sibyl and their prophetic inscriptions as well as in St. John the Baptist. It is established in the Old Testament frescoes of the stories of Moses, which are to be read typologically (see Chapter 7). Finally, all prophecies are fulfilled in the image of the sacrificed Christ of the Lamentation. The only inscriptions in the chapel decoration are the prophecies of Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection written on the scrolls below King David and The Erythraean Sibyl (see Plate 12). Under David are two lines from Psalm 21 [22]: FODERVNT MANVS DAVID

M E A S E T PEDES / M E O S D I N V M E R A V E R V N T O M N I A / OSSA M E A

(They have pierced my hands and my feet; they have numbered all my

bones—David). David's words were understood as a prophecy of the Crucifixion. Indeed, the psalm from which these lines were drawn was identified in the liturgy with the Crucifixion; it was sung on Good Friday among the Improperia, which form part of the veneration of the cross.1 This quotation thus connects the prophet with the Lamentation, where the Crucifixion is evoked in the dead Christ and in the instruments of the Passion (adjacent to David in the upper zone of the paintin g)-

I 9 o

Bronzino portrayed David as the crowned and aged king, his left hand tugging at his beard in a familiar gesture signifying the presence of the divine (exemplified in Michelangelo's Moses; see Fig. 70).2 David is also characterized as the divinely inspired psalmist, who holds a harp (with which, perhaps, he accompanies the Twenty-first Psalm). Below Erythraea is a quotation from the book of sibylline prophecies, the Orcula sibyllina, which she holds open: SVBSCEPTO ET T V [ N ] C A B / L N F E R I S

MORTE MORIETVR

TRIB[V]S

REGRESSVS AD L V C E M V E N I E T

DIEBVS/SOMNO ERITHEA

(And

he shall fall asleep and lie in death for three days: then he shall be the first to return from the lower world and come again to the light—Erithea). 3 While David and Erythraea were by no means a common pair, here she was chosen to accompany the prophet in her role as a prophet of the Resurrection, which she had become by virtue of the very lines inscribed beneath her.4 These words had been featured before in Renaissance art with Erythraea's image, as in Fra Angelico's Crucifixion at S. Marco, where she is the only sibyl in a series of nine prophets (including David) portrayed in the frame. She also appears (with part of the same inscription, quoted in Greek from Lactantius), as one of four sibyls in Raphael's decoration of the Chigi Chapel (Rome, S. Maria delle Pace), where her prophecy of the Resurrection appropriately refers to the subject of the chapel's altarpiece.5 St. John the Baptist (see Plate 10) complements King David, for he too is a prophet of the Crucifixion. Like David, who was understood to prophesy Christ's sacrifice in Psalm 21, John's words "Ecce Agnus Dei" signaled Christ as the sacrificial lamb.6 Since John prophesied the Passion—but was not a participant in it—Bronzino separated him from the central panel of the altarpiece by making him larg er than the figures in the Lamentation? He has made certain, however, that the saint's role as the herald of Christ's advent is clear: John's pose, halfkneeling in profile, as if genuflecting, is strikingly like that of an angel of the Annunciation. As the initiator of the sacrament of baptism, St. John is also a fulcrum of a theme of baptism in the chapel, and Bronzino reminds the observer of the act of baptizing by depicting a cup with water at the saint's feet.

The Eucharistie Lamentation The chapel's prophecies of salvation have their focus in the Lamentation,

with

which the conception of the chapel decoration must have begun, even though the

191

vault and the Moses frescoes were executed earlier. T h e altarpiece f r a m e d by prophets (and the anomalous St. C o s m a s , w h o belongs to the Medicean prog r a m m e o f the w o r k ; see C h a p t e r 12) is an iconographically complex w o r k in w h i c h the L a m e n t a t i o n — t h e dead Christ held by the V i r g i n , St. John the E v a n gelist, and the M a g d a l e n e in the front plane; the holy w o m e n and the g r o u p o f Joseph o f A r i m a t h e a , N i c o d e m u s , and their companion behind t h e m — i s e m b e l lished w i t h symbolic elements (see Plate 11). T h e angels w h o float above w i t h the arma Christi, for example, link the L a m e n t a t i o n explicitly to the w h o l e o f Christ's Passion. 8 A n g e l s like these were often depicted in Renaissance art in a lunette surm o u n t i n g a Passion scene; or, as in Bronzino's o w n earlier Pietà with Angels (see F i g . 49), the Pietà g r o u p may be flanked by angels w h o hold the individual instruments o f the Passion. In the chapel Lamentation,

five

angels carry three o f the

arma Christi: t w o at the left hold the column, one at the center holds the rod w i t h the sponge and the lance, and t w o at the right hold the cross. Below, in the L a m entation scene itself, are the t w o remaining Passion symbols: the three nails (and the pincers) held by Joseph, and the c r o w n of thorns, resting on the g r o u n d below, approximately on a line w i t h Christ's head. T h e cross and the nails, w h i c h evoke David's prophecy o f the C r u c i f i x i o n , have been g i v e n special prominence. Joseph, w h o is brightly lit and stands directly under the cross, holds the nails against his white g a r m e n t (see Plate 28). T h e cross itself is accented by Bronzino's emphatic characterization o f the r e d - w i n g e d angel carrying it (see Plate 29). T h e angel's head is aligned above that o f the central holy w o m a n , his w i n g s alone are brightly colored, and he is the only figure in the painting w h o looks directly out at the observer. A n o t h e r symbolic feature o f the altarpiece, the angel-acolytes w i t h the chalice and veil, transforms it into a eucharistic Lamentation. 9 O n e o f Bronzino's c o m positional s o u r c e s — A n d r e a del Sarto's S. L u c o altarpiece (see F i g . 9 5 ) — i s also a eucharistic L a m e n t a t i o n , but its symbolism is overtly presented: the dead Christ is displayed on the Stone o f Unction, alluding to the altar, and the chalice and host s y m b o l i z i n g the w i n e and bread o f the Mass are depicted directly below in clear reference to the C o r p u s Domini. 1 0 B r o n z i n o integrated the symbolic chalice into the L a m e n t a t i o n scene by placing it in the hand o f the angel to the left (see F i g . 113), a m o t i f that recalls the angels w h o catch the blood of Christ in chalices in early Renaissance Crucifixions. M a k i n g the reference to the eucharistic C h r i s t explicit, this angel simultaneously points at the body of Christ.

DEVOTIONAL

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Though attending the dead Christ, this angel, somewhat surprisingly, looks out of the scene, gazing serenely toward the wall on which Moses Striking the Rock and the Gathering of Manna are represented (see Plate 8), with St. John the Evangelist on Patmos in the vault above (see Plate 19). The two Moses episodes were understood as typifying the wine and bread of the Eucharist, and John's Gospel, in which the doctrine of the Eucharist is most explicitly spelled out (John 6), is replete with the very eucharistic allusions from which these typologies were drawn. The angel thus shifts the observer's attention to the sacramental meaning of Christ's death. The pendant angel-acolyte, identically dressed, also points at the dead Christ but holds a transparent veil with both hands (see Fig. 125). The veil is more diverse in its allusions than the chalice. The motif of the veil in Renaissance painting was drawn from the Meditations on the Life of Christ, where it is told that the Virgin wrapped Christ in a veil from her head at the Nativity and "gird[ed] Him with the veil from her head" after the Crucifixion." The prophetic veil held by the Virgin over the Christ child is a common motif in Renaissance painting, seen in pictures like Raphael's Madonna di Loreto and its derivatives,12 as well as in Bronzino's own Holy Families of the 1540s.13 Veils in paintings of the Pietà or Lamentation—especially transparent ones such as the veil held up by the Virgin in Sebastiano del Piombo's Ubeda Pietà (Seville, Casa de Pilatos; 1 5 3 7 - 3 9 ) — a l s o allude to the veils described in the Meditations. So also do veils in scenes of the Resurrection or the three Marys at the tomb, where they may be read as Christ's burial cloths. Angels often hold them; indeed, late medieval sculptures of these subjects show angels displaying veils explicitly alluding to the Resurrection.14 These veils being all the same, any of them carries all these meanings, as must the veil in Bronzino's Lamentation. But such veils—whether in scenes of Christ's infancy, his Passion, or his Resurrection—also have a eucharistic significance. In Bronzino's Lamentation,

where the chalice signals the Eucharist, the veil also

reads as a eucharistic emblem. Liturgically, it alludes to the humeral veil used in the Mass to cover the Sacrament, as is suggested in the deliberate way the angel lifts it with both hands, as does the priest in the Mass.15 There are other indications of a eucharistic theme in Bronzino's altarpiece. Although his dead Christ recalls Michelangelo's Pietà (see Fig. 98), an important element of the figure differs from Michelangelo's: the body of Christ is overscale in relation to the Virgin. In this, Bronzino's Christ is similar to Bandinelli's Dead

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Christ with Nicodemus, a later eucharistie Pietà in which the instruments of the Passion are also prominently displayed (see Fig. 109).16 As in Bandinelli's work, Bronzino's dead Christ is placed in a decidedly unnatural position, with the body turned, its left arm pronated and held by the Virgin—as if for the spectator's contemplation. Bronzino's deliberate display of the Corpus Domini also reveals all five wounds of the Crucifixion (although, paradoxically, his idealizing style does not permit detailed description of them).17 Christ's body lies on a diagonal almost exactly parallel to that of the large cross carried by the angels above. The wounds of the hands and feet allude to the fulfillment of David's prophecy "They have pierced my hands and feet," and the lance's wound in Christ's right side is aligned directly with the lance carried by the angel above. This wound is also the focus of a play of hands. The angel-acolyte with the chalice points at St. John and at Christ, while John, in turn, indicates the wound with his splayed fingers. John's position—between the symbolic chalice and the wound—is particularly apt, for it is his Gospel (John 19:33-35) that tells about the piercing of Christ's body with the lance and his epistle that designates the blood flowing from Christ's side as a type of the Eucharist (1 John 5:6-8). Below John's hand, the Virgin's right hand supports the body with the end of Christ's loincloth in an allusively liturgical manner.18 The subtle interplay between these three figures around Christ thus calls our attention to the sacramental meaning of the Corpus Domini. Even though they were not envisioned in the early 1540s, the subjects of the paintings added later to the altar wall ensemble confirm the importance of the eucharistie theme signaled in the chapel's Lamentation. The Annunciation, in particular, alludes directly to the Incarnation, emphasizing the theme of the Corpus Domini on the altar wall (see Plate 9).19

Joseph, Nicodemus, and the Artist's Portraits in the Lamentation The three men to the right in Bronzino's altarpiece have a special iconographie significance (see Plate 28).20 The inclusion of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus in Deposition and Entombment scenes is supported by both scriptural and apocryphal sources, which describe the two men assisting in taking the body from the cross and preparing it for burial.21 Apocryphal writings and medieval texts expanded the role of Nicodemus considerably, sometimes confounding his attri-

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butes and actions with those of Joseph, a confusion that was carried over into the iconography of Joseph and Nicodemus in medieval and Renaissance art.22 In the Byzantine tradition, where the theme of the Threnos, or Lamentation, first appears, both Joseph and Nicodemus are represented frequently as active participants in the Deposition, with Joseph generally shown supporting the upper part of the body of Christ and Nicodemus, often with pincers and nails, at the feet. Likewise, in the Entombment, Joseph (usually white-bearded) was given the role of sustaining the head of Christ, and Nicodemus (usually black-bearded) was at the feet—an arrangement logically deduced from the relative importance accorded the two characters in the Gospels. When the subject of the Lamentation— in which Joseph and Nicodemus have no active role—evolved as a central devotional image in Renaissance art, Joseph and Nicodemus were usually retained, kneeling and holding the shroud at the head and feet of Christ, in symbolic recall of their traditional roles in the Entombment.23 This traditional depiction of Joseph and Nicodemus is seen in Florentine altarpieces of the late quattrocento such as Perugino's Lamentation (see Fig. 94). The older, bearded, bareheaded, and richly dressed Joseph is at the head of Christ, supporting the upper part of the body, while the younger Nicodemus, who is more simply garbed but wears an exotic turban, holds the shroud at the feet.24 Pontormo's Certosa Lamentation, where Joseph holds Christ's head and Nicodemus (who wears a conical hat) is at the far left holding the shroud, is also of this type (see Fig. 96). Variations in the positions and attributes of Joseph and Nicodemus were frequently introduced, however, in Italian art; for example, one or both of them were isolated behind or to the sides of the main Lamentation group, where they hold either the nails, pincers, and jar of spices that signal their actions in the Deposition and Entombment or other symbols of the Passion, such as the crown of thorns.25 Bronzino's Joseph and Nicodemus, whose position in the painting follows this last tradition, are readily identifiable by their traditional physical types and attributes. The white-bearded Joseph, who holds the three nails and the pincers, is dressed in a white garment decorated with bands of gold embroidery with motifs all'antica. This robe also has pink fringe, a detail of costume that traditionally indicated a foreigner—which, of course, he was.26 The younger Nicodemus wears a less rich but more contemporary fur-collared red robe and, in keeping with the tradition, a hat—here the leather helmet hat with flaps fashionable in Florence in the 1530s and 1540s. Pontormo wears a similar hat (without the exotic chinstrap)

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in Bronzino's contemporaneous portrait drawing of him (see Fig. 134).27 The salient feature of Nicodemus's representation, however, is the magnificent ewer he carries, which refers to the spices of "one hundred pounds weight" that he brought to Christ's entombment (John 19:38). This ewer positively identifies Nicodemus: either Joseph or Nicodemus may hold the nails and pincers in the Lamentation scene (since both men participated in the Deposition), but only Nicodemus carries a vessel, usually one of contemporary design.28 In keeping with the courtly dress and accessories of the actors in the chapel's Lamentation, Bronzino's Nicodemus carries a large lapis lazuli ewer with a gold handle fashioned as an acrobatic nude. Since no such monumental pieces—especially in lapis lazuli—were in the ducal collections as early as the 1540s,29 this ewer may have been inspired by designs of similar ewers by Salviati, such as one in which the handle is a nude woman (Fig. 130), or by prints of antique vases, such as the series dated 1543 by Enea Vico.30 Employing a degree of artistic license, Bronzino painted Nicodemus's ewer in the same costly lapis lazuli he employed for the background and for the robes of the Virgin in the altarpiece. Bronzino added a third man to the traditional two-figure group standing behind the Lamentation scene. His identification is problematic: biblical and apochryphal texts mention no such man, and medieval texts such as the Meditations on the Life of Christ, from which the theme of the Pietà was drawn, refer only vaguely to "others" who came with Joseph and Nicodemus to the scene of the Crucifixion. 31 However, in cinquecento paintings of the Deposition and Entombment, one or two men are frequently represented as helping Joseph and Nicodemus. These "extras" in the scene appear to have been inspired by a study of such Diirer prints as a woodcut of the Entombment from the Large Passion (Bar. 13), where three turbaned men carry Christ's body. An example close to Bronzino is a Diireresque Entombment by Vasari, then in the collection of Duke Cosimo, in which three men carry the body of Christ (Arezzo, Casa del Vasari).32 They are described by the painter as "Niccodemo, Gioseffo et altri"; Vasari also wrote at length in 1537 about the Deposition (Arezzo, Chiesa dell'Annunziata) he was painting, calling the four men taking the body of Christ from the cross "i Nicodemi." 33 In paintings of the Lamentation, these helpers, not needed, were less commonly included. However, a "third man" was sometimes carried over from the cast of characters of the narrative scenes. Such a figure occurs regularly in the Northern paintings and prints that all the artists of Bronzino's Florentine circle

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WS8A

FIGURE 130.

Francesco Salviati, design for a ewer. O x f o r d , Ashmolean Museum.

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131.

Albrecht Dürer, Lamentation (woodcut).

studied. In Dürer's Lamentation woodcut from the Small Passion, for example, a turbaned companion, seen frontally, is depicted between Joseph and Nicodemus (Fig. 131). 34 Pontormo included the companion—the man who leans over to lift the lid of the box of spices—in his Düreresque Lamentation at the Certosa (see Fig. 96). Bronzino and Bandinelli also borrowed motifs from Dürer prints: their influence appears in Bronzino's early works, in his 1552 Resurrection, and in his Pietà of 1569 in S. Croce; Bandinelli quotes Dürer in numerous drawings.35 There is, however, no precise source in Dürer for the trio of men in Bronzino's chapel Lamentation. A compositional "set piece" of a trio (not necessarily including both Joseph and Nicodemus) to the right of the Lamentation seems to occur first in Italian painting in Perugino's S. Chiara altarpiece (see Fig. 94), a work on which

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FIGURE 132.

Marcantonio Raimondi, Lamentation

(engraving).

(as we have seen) the composition of Bronzino's Lamentation depends in other respects. There, the trio is made up of a young saint, a Vallombrosan monk, and a turbaned man. The latter is of interest in relation to the third man in Bronzino's altarpiece, for he takes over Joseph and Nicodemus's accustomed role as displayer of the nails, and he seems to be associated with these figures, who kneel in the left and right foreground. (The three men are connected by their blue robes and exotic details of dress—brocades, turbans, scarves—worn by no one else in the scene.) Such a trio also appears in an engraving by Marcantonio of the Lamentation (Fig. 132) that was made about 1515 after a drawing by Raphael for the Borghese Entombment.i6 It depends on Perugino's model (and not incidentally on Diirer's Entombment engraving as well),37 but the characters are arranged somewhat dif-

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ferently: the turbaned N i c o d e m u s and St. John the Evangelist are the f o r e g r o u n d figures o f the trio, and the "third m a n " — w h o wears a h a t — s t a n d s between them. T h i s set piece of the three m e n — w i t h its antecedents in Diirer, Perugino, and R a p h a e l — w a s reconstituted in Bronzino's altarpiece to include Joseph, N i c o d e m u s , and their companion. Unlike Marcantonio or Perugino, Bronzino subjected his trio of witnesses to Maniera conventions of gesture, d e c o r u m , and grazia.

Jo-

seph is artfully introspective; his lips are slightly parted, and he brings his hand with the nails across his chest in eloquent personal testimony. N i c o d e m u s mutely attends to and gestures toward Joseph, and their companion stares wide-eyed at him. In this Lamentation

Joseph and N i c o d e m u s play the role of detached ob-

servers—isolated in suspended conversation, witnesses to the sacramental m e a n ing o f the scene and bearers of the arma

Christi.

T h e trio o f witnesses embodies an unusual personal conceit that illuminates the m e a n i n g of the Lamentation

in Bronzino's art and its relation to that of his con-

temporaries. T h i s conceit d r a w s on a Renaissance tradition in which the painter or sculptor included himself or other artists as bystanders, or even actors, in religious works. W h e n Joseph and N i c o d e m u s were depicted in early Renaissance scenes of the Passion, the tradition of showing Joseph as older and bareheaded, N i c o d e m u s as younger and turbaned was maintained; in other cases, Joseph and N i c o d e m u s are similar in type (but we are probably correct in consistently identifying Joseph as the m a n w h o holds Christ or w h o is placed to his right). In a related devotional i m a g e of the dead Christ supported by one mourner only, however, it has been difficult to identify the supporting figure with certainty—is he Joseph or N i c o d e m u s ? In the early quattrocento, a white-bearded m a n w h o m u s t be Joseph was often represented, but toward the end of the century, a turbaned m a n (sometimes younger) was probably intended to be Nicodemus. 3 8 I would suggest that this new i m a g e — t h a t of the single mourner as N i c o d e m u s — d e v e l o p e d because the artist began to paint the m a n holding the D e a d Christ as a self-portrait. T h i s new iconography conflated two traditions, both f r o m N o r t h e r n art. T h e first was the portrayal of N i c o d e m u s — t h e m o r e h u m b l e personage w h o is usually placed at the feet of Christ (or on his l e f t ) — a s a worker, as in the Lamentation

by Petrus Christus in which N i c o d e m u s is a worker w h o

has the nails, h a m m e r , and pincers laid out below him ( N e w York, Metropolitan

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Museum of Art).39 The second was the depiction of Nicodemus as a portrait in contemporary dress.40 Also relevant to this development was a traditional association of Nicodemus with the art of sculpture and sculptors' representations of him as a self-portrait.41 This tradition may have been particularly strong in Florence because of the legend that Nicodemus was a sculptor and the author of a famous Crucifix—the venerated Volto Santo, then in Lucca.42 Indeed, Vasari maintains (erroneously, as it happens) that Nicodemus in Fra Angelico's Deposition (S. Marco) is a portrait of the architect and sculptor Michelozzo.43 When the artist wished to identify intimately with Christ's sacrifice and to portray himself alone holding the dead Christ, the two traditions—Nicodemus as a portrait of a humble worker and Joseph at Christ's head—came into conflict. Significantly, the individualistic tradition of the Renaissance artist as Nicodemus the artisan appears to have taken precedence over the older iconography in which Joseph was assigned the honored place. Thus, in most cinquecento Pietàs with a self-portrait of the artist, it seems to be Nicodemus who was intended, not Joseph—even when the identifying headgear is absent.44 As early as the 1520s, the subject of the dead Christ with Nicodemus had become popular in Florence, as in a number of paintings and drawings from the circle of Rosso-Salviati-Bandinelli. 45 Around 1550 this conceit was monumentalized in two sculptured Pietà groups, both containing self-portraits of the artist and both intended for the sculptor's own tomb: Michelangelo's Pietà with Nicodemus and the Magdalene (Duomo, begun before 1550);46 and Bandinelli's Dead Christ with Nicodemus, begun about 1554 (see Fig. 109).47 Vasari and other contemporary sources identify the self-portraits in these works as Nicodemus, and there seems no reason to question this testimony to a Florentine tradition.48 The conceit of the artist as Nicodemus witnessing the Passion was also current in Bronzino's immediate artistic circle and in works contemporaneous with the chapel altarpiece. Pontormo realized the conceit imaginatively in his Lamentation-Entombment

in the Capponi Chapel (see Fig. 99). There, dressed as

an artisan wearing a hat—and painted in earthy ocher and green tones, which contrast with the phosphorescent pale tonality of the rest of the picture— Pontormo-as-Nicodemus looks out at the observer from the right margin of the painting.49 Since only one of the two men who buried Christ is portrayed in Pontormo's altarpiece, and since he is characterized as a worker, his identity as Nicodemus seems secure. In 1545-46, Salviati, too, depicted himself as Nicodemus.

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FIGURE 1 3 3 .

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F r a n c e s c o S a l v i a t i , Lamentation.

CHAPEL

Pitti.

In a Lamentation painted for Duke Cosimo, he is recognizable as the young black-bearded man in profile (placed in an unusually prominent central position in the painting), standing next to a bearded Joseph (Fig. 133).50 In a number of works where both Joseph and Nicodemus are present (and neither carries Nicodemus's jar of spices), however, the identity of the man with the features of the artist is not always certain. Bandinelli's various depictions of Passion subjects are a case in point; indeed, in some of them, the artist seems to be both Joseph and Nicodemus. In the modello for his Descent from the Cross relief, he is recognizable as the bareheaded man in the left middle ground, who is probably Joseph; he touches his beard with one hand and raises his other hand, as the turbaned Nicodemus next to him displays the nails of the Crucifixion (see Fig. 120).51 The same self-portrait-as-Joseph type, this time holding the nails and based on Donatello's Joseph (see Fig. 122), appears in the related drawing (see Fig. 121). And, again, in the modello of a Lamentation with Cosimo and Eleonora about 1540, a Bandinellian type appears as both Joseph (at the head of Christ) and Nicodemus, who wears a hat and holds the crown of thorns and the nails (see Fig. 100).52 None of the works by Bronzino's contemporaries provides an exact precedent for the trio of Nicodemus, Joseph, and a companion in the Lamentation

of the

Chapel of Eleonora, however. Not one but all three figures are portraits of artists, and Bronzino has used them in a novel and personal way to signal the artistic genesis of his masterpiece. The companion of Joseph and Nicodemus is the only one of the three men shown frontally—and thus the one most obviously a portrait. He is an unmistakable likeness of Pontormo, 53 a portrait in which Bronzino paid tribute to his master, whose Capponi Chapel altarpiece was a major Florentine exemplar of the Lamentation by an artist of the previous generation. Besides his self-portrait as Nicodemus in the Capponi Chapel (see Fig. 99), there are a number of contemporary likenesses of Pontormo, the closest in date to the chapel altarpiece being Bronzino's drawing of the late 1530s, which shows Pontormo's pinched face, large eyes, and sparse beard (Fig. 134). Bronzino also portrayed Pontormo in Christ in Limbo

(see Fig. 10), where he appears, wide-eyed, in the shadow to the left of

Christ's right shoulder.54 There are also other portraits of Pontormo as witness to a sacred event, such as a posthumous one in Allori's Christ among the Doctors of 1560-64, where his name is written on his collar (Fig. 135).

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FIGURE 134

{left). Portrait d r a w i n g of Pontormo, detail of the head. Uffizi.

FIGURE 1 3 5 .

Alessandro Allori, Christ among the Doctors, detail, portraits of Pontormo, Bronzino, and Tomaso Manzuoli. SS. Annunziata.

In Bronzino's chapel painting, Pontormo is portrayed as the anonymous companion of Joseph and Nicodemus and takes his place behind them. He is in the background—in the past—while the other two figures belong to the present. Bronzino, the painter of the Lamentation, is cast in the traditional artist's role as Nicodemus. We know Bronzino's features from several portraits by Allori, who depicts him in the company of other artists—in emulation, I believe, of the chapel altarpiece. The earliest of these is a cartoon for a Christ in Limbo of about 1555— 60, where Pontormo and Bronzino are shown side by side at the lower right (Fig. 136).55 Allori also depicted the two artists in Christ among the Doctors

a portrait

that was the model for the frontispiece of the life of Bronzino in Rau and Rastrelli's late eighteenth-century Degli uomini illustri nella pittura (see Fig. 1). And

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FIGURE 136.

Alessandro Allori, study for Christ in Limbo,

detail,

portraits of Pontormo and Bronzino. Uffizi.

Allori portrayed both artists again below his fresco of the Trinity in the Chapel of St. Luke at SS. Annunziata (Fig. 137). These damaged portraits, identified by the inscriptions

AN-BR

and

IA>PV,

were added a secco after Bronzino's death in 1572.57

Here a spirit of homage to Allori's artistic antenati (ancestors) is clear, the composition even suggesting another, secular, "trinity" in which Allori—painter of the work—traces his artistic lineage to Bronzino and Pontormo. Finally, Bronzino appears in Allori's Christ in Limbo of 1588 at S. Marco as the central head (between Moses and St. John the Baptist) of a trio of witnesses strikingly like that of the Chapel of Eleonora altarpiece (Fig. 138). Also useful in identifying the portrait of Bronzino in the Lamentation are two portraits of him closer in date to the chapel decoration. One is an anonymous

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FIGURE 1 3 7 .

Alessandro Allori, Trinity. Chapel of St. Luke, SS. Annunziata.

FIGURE 138.

Alessandro Allori, Christ in Limbo, detail, portrait of Bronzino with Moses and St. John the Baptist. S. Marco.

painting dating f r o m about 1550 (Fig. 139); 58 comparing this portrait with Allori's likenesses of Bronzino, we can easily recognize the face of a younger Bronzino. T h e second portrait is Bronzino's own portrayal of himself in 1 5 5 2 as witness to another sacred event—Christ's descent into L i m b o (see Fig. 10). B r o n z i n o — w h o was the author of sacred poetry—has cast himself here as David the Psalmist, the man at the upper left w h o extends a muscular arm toward Christ (Fig. 140).59 H e idealized his own image, adding a long, flowing beard to his still-youthful face, just as he had given his strong-featured profile a heroic mien in the Nicodemus in the chapel altarpiece. Moreover, both figures have been singled out for special attention by the use of the costly lapis lazuli for David's blue robe and Nicodemus's blue ewer, and by the luxurious goldsmith work of the handle of the ewer and of David's belt (whose putti are like those in Bronzino's contemporaneous tapestry borders). Of the trio in the chapel altarpiece, it is Joseph of Arimathea w h o dominates the right side of the painting: he is depicted not just as a head but in half-length, he wears a gleaming white robe, he is fully illuminated by a strong light f r o m the

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FIGURE

139.

FIGURE

Anonymous, Agnolo Bronzino. Uffizi.

140.

Christ in Limbo, detail, Bronzino as David. S. Lorenzo.

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left, he is the only one of the three men who contemplates the dead Christ—and he is, in fact, a portrait of Bandinelli.60 The sculptor's appearance is extensively documented in his many self-portraits—for example in The Dead Christ with Nicodemus, where the same bearded personage is depicted as he appeared in the early 1550s (see Fig. 109). Earlier, he had been portrayed in Enea Vico's engraving after his design, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli (Fig. 141).61 His head—directly under a book bearing his name as inventor of the composition—is at almost the same angle as in Bronzino's portrait of him as Joseph. Finally, comparing Bronzino's likeness with a contemporaneous self-portrait painted by Bandinelli (Fig. 142), we can see how carefully Bronzino observed Bandinelli's hair: the steel gray base of its color, the wisps at the temples, and the short, tousled bits on the crown of his head.62 While Bronzino was working on the chapel frescoes, Bandinelli was trying to secure the commission for the altarpiece (see Chapter 5): we know from an exchange of letters in November 1542 that he submitted a modello for it to Cosimo and that the duke directed Bronzino to paint it after Bandinelli's design. The presence in the painting of Bandinelli as Joseph appears, then, to be Bronzino's acknowledgment of the artist who supplied the invenzione for his picture. Knowing that these three men are portraits makes more understandable the fluid and transparent manner in which Bronzino painted them. Like Pontormo, who used color differentiation rather than technique to make this distinction (the earth colors in which he painted his self-portrait in the Capponi Chapel altarpiece), Bronzino subtly distinguished between the level of reality of the trio and that of the other biblical figures. The concetto of the trio of artists in the chapel altarpiece was the prototype for a similar trio in Bronzino's Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo (see Fig. 47). Here the readily identifiable portraits of the artists (who do not play roles) make up an obvious set piece, one that would seem to lend credence to my reading of the chapel trio. In the left background, under Mercury, patron god of artists, are three bust-length figures that look out at the spectator, their dark contemporary dress contrasting with the light tones of the rest of the fresco (Fig. 143). To the left we recognize Bronzino, author of the painting, who holds what appears to be a paintbrush in his right hand.63 His head—demonstrably that of the person who appears in the contemporary Christ among the Doctors (see Fig. 135), is placed like a signature at the left margin of the painting.64

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MMMMUI

FIGURE 1 4 1 .

Enea Vico (engraving after Bandinella, The Academy of Baccio

Bandinelli,

detail, self-portrait of Bandinelli. Uffizi.

FIGURE

142.

Baccio Bandinelli,

Self-portrait,

detail. Boston, Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum.

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FIGURE 143.

Martyrdom

of S. Lorenzo,

detail, portraits of Bronzino, Pontormo, and

Allori. S. Lorenzo.

In the center of the trio in the Martyrdom—in

the same relationship to Bron-

zino as in the Eleonora chapel's altarpiece trio—is a posthumous portrait of P o n t o r m o , also recognizable f r o m Allori's portrait of him in Christ among Doctors f As in the chapel Lamentation,

the

P o n t o r m o is included in the role of Bron-

zino's master; and, as in the earlier painting, the reference to Pontormo's own art is very pointed, for P o n t o r m o had also worked at S. Lorenzo on a Martyrdom S. Lorenzo.

of

T h a t fresco, over the high altar, was left incomplete on Pontormo's

death and was finished by Bronzino, w h o (according to Vasari) included a portrait of P o n t o r m o to the right of the saint in tribute to his master. 66 Now, following a precedent established by earlier Renaissance painters like Luca Signorelli and Raphael, 67 Bronzino included a commemorative portrait of P o n t o r m o next to his own in the Martyrdom,

in reference to Pontormo's earlier role as painter in the

same church.

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The third head of the Martyrdom trio is Allori, whose likeness may be compared with that in Bronzino's Christ in Limbo, where he is the youth looking up under Christ's right arm (see Fig. io).68 Allori's presence here rounds out "three ages"—three generations—of Florentine painters: Bronzino's master, Bronzino himself, and Bronzino's follower. In this fresco, then, as in the chapel Lamentation, Bronzino, Pontormo, and Allori are witnesses not only to the sacred event depicted but to Bronzino's painting of it and to his place in the continuum of Florentine art.69 The concetto of the trio of artists in the Chapel of Eleonora Lamentation is strikingly similar to that of the Martyrdom. Bronzino, the youthful man to the left, underlines his artistic relationship with the two older artists. (Bandinelli was the oldest of the group, and Bronzino has conspicuously aged him so that he looks more venerable, even though he was scarcely two years older than Pontormo.) Next to him in the center is his master, and to the right is Bandinelli, who had provided the invenzione for the design of the painting. Bronzino's trio of witnesses to the Lamentation thus symbolizes the artistic genesis of the altarpiece of the Chapel of Eleonora.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

THE

S T O R I E S OF

MOSES

The stories of Moses that Bronzino painted on the walls of the Chapel of Eleonora continue the theme of prophecy and fulfillment in the paintings on the altar wall. Prophecies of salvation are the subtext of the Moses frescoes. For these read not only as biblical narrative but as typology, the conventional metaphorical reading of the Old Testament. This interpretation of the Old Testament, established by the words of Christ himself (Luke 24:44), was set forth by St. Paul, who postulated, in 1 Corinthians and in Hebrews, a mystical correspondence between Old and New Testaments. The typology was elaborated by St. Augustine and other church fathers and codified in the Middle Ages in popular illustrated books (widely known in Italy) such as the Biblia pauperum and the Speculum humanae salvationis, in which Old Testament stories and characters were viewed as types or figures of the New, and the New Covenant was seen as the fulfillment of the Old. Corresponding scenes from the Old and New Testaments were routinely juxtaposed in medieval art. In the Renaissance, however, typology fell out of fashion and no longer played a major role in monumental art,1 even though the idea of analogy persisted and the notion of Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in the New remained a powerful underlying premise of religious narrative (whether or not the New Testament, or Christological, element was depicted). But typology as such did survive in a specific form characteristic of religious imagery of the 1530s and 1540s. Rather than the traditional pairings of Old and New Testament events,

213

a series of Old Testament scenes form the setting—the Old Testament background—for a single monumental work that stands for the New Testament as a whole and is the climax of the ensemble. Examples of the use of typology at the time of the Chapel of Eleonora include two other chapels. One was decorated by the Roman painter Sicolante da Sermoneta about 1549 at the Château de la Bastie d'Urfé in southeastern France.2 It is dedicated to the Sacrament: the altarpiece is The Institution of the Eucharist, and the rest of the decoration is entirely devoted to Old Testament prototypes of the Eucharist. The two most prominent scenes are Moses Striding the Roc\ and The Gathering of Manna (Fig. 144), which Sicolante painted in large lunettes, the Manna on the altar wall, the Rock^ opposite. Correspondences between Sicolante's figures (the men and women gathering manna, the repoussoir nude to the right of the miracle of the rock) and figures in Bronzino's Manna and Red Sea-Joshua

frescoes (the

manna gatherers, the reclining nude) suggest that Sicolante was acquainted with Bronzino's chapel frescoes. Another chapel of this type was an important precedent for the Chapel of Eleonora: a major Old Testament cycle (no longer in place in its entirety), including Moses scenes, painted in 1531-38 for the apse of the Pisa cathedral.3 The iconography of these panels centered on the theme of sacrifice, divine reward, and divine punishment. To .the left of the altar were examples of sacrifice rewarded: Giovanni Antonio Sogliani's Sacrifice of Abel and Sacrifice of Noah, Sodoma's Sacrifice of Isaac, and (nearest the altar) Battista Franco's Gathering of Manna (much damaged; Fig. 145)—the last construed as alluding typologically to the Eucharist, thus also representing a sacrifice.4 To the right were examples of sacri-

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FIGURE 144

(opposite). Sicolante da Sermoneta, The Gathering of Manna. Chapel of the Bastie d'Urfé.

FIGURE 145.

Battista Franco, The Gathering of Manna. Pisa, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.

fice punished: two Moses scenes by Beccafumi (The Punishment of Korah [see Fig. 77] and The Adoration of the Golden Calf), Niccolo del Ambrigia's Punishment of the Sons of Aron, and Sogliani's Sacrifice of Cain. The New Testament counterparts of these episodes are not represented, but the Passion of Christ and the theme of the Redemption are present in Sodoma's altarpiece of the Lamentation (1540) and in Beccafumi's Four Evangelists.

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Still another example of typology in this period is the apparato in the Florentine Baptistery for the baptism of Francesco de' Medici in 1 5 4 1 , which was used again in 1550 for the baptism of Garzia and again in 1577 for the baptism of the firstborn

son of the next generation (Francesco's son Filippo). 5 Its climactic deco-

ration was The Baptism of Christ by Vasari; we learn from the diarist Francesco Settimanni's description of the 1577 event that the decoration was typological— that Vasari's painting was flanked by a Deluge and a Crossing of the Red Sea, which were considered types of Baptism: Nella tribuna fu posta la tela a olio, alta braccia 15 e larga 13, ove era il Battesimo di Nostro Signore, e dalle bande in una il Diluvio, nell'altra gli Ebrei che passano il Mar Rosso, figure amendue del Battesimo. La pittura fu di Giorgio Vasari.6 (In the tribune was placed an oil painting, fifteen braccia high and thirteen braccia wide, depicting the baptism of our Lord; on one side was The Deluge and on the other The Crossing of the Red Sea, both of them types of baptism. The paintings were by Giorgio Vasari.)

Vincenzo Borghini's description of the 1577 baptism details these works at greater length, noting that they were accompanied by inscriptions from SS. Peter and Paul designating them as prototypes of baptism: Nelle guance, e piegatura di questa Cappella, e Tribuna maggiore, sono state fatte d'ordine del medesimo maestro [Vasari] due grandi historie similmente colorite, nelle quali si rappresentano quelle due, che per testimonio de' due principali Apostoli, furono figure, et ombra del S. Battesimo. . . . Nell'altra historia, che è dirimpetto a questa, e della medesima grandezza, si vede il passaggio del Popolo Israelitico, per lo mare rosso. . . . E che ciò fusse segno, e figura del Battesimo, lo dichiarò San Paulo nelle parole, che a pie di detta historia si legono: Baptizati svnt in nvbe, et in mari.7 (To the sides of the Tribune were two large istorie, also in chiaroscuro, painted by the same master [Vasari], depicting the two subjects that, according to the two main apostles, were types of baptism. . . . In the other istoria, which is opposite

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this one | The Deluge] and of the same size, one can see the crossing of the Hebrew people through the Red Sea. . . . That this event was a sign and type of baptism was also declared by S. Paul in the words that can be read below the painting: "They are baptized in the cloud and in the sea.")

This example of typology is particularly relevant to the Chapel of Eleonora because it was a Medici commission exactly contemporaneous with Bronzino's painting of the Moses frescoes. The decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora was similar in some respects to each of these contemporary examples of typological decoration, but different from all of them in that it was devoted exclusively to stories of Moses. Beginning with St. Paul's characterization of him (Hebrews 9:18-27, 11:23) and continuing through early Christian and medieval exegetical writings, Moses had been the preeminent typus Christi, or type of Christ. In fact, the prevailing view of the Old Testament as prophecy was largely based on analogies made in the N e w Testament between events from Exodus (the Crossing of the Red Sea, the Brazen Serpent, the Fall of Manna, and Moses Striking the Rock) and the Passion of Christ, as well as the sacraments of the Eucharist and baptism.8 In the patristic tradition, Exodus 12, which tells of the Crossing of the Red Sea, was the paschal text par excellence, and the epic of the deliverance from Egypt itself prefigured the Redemption and the sacraments of the Church. 9 Because of this Christological and sacramental typology, Moses had been represented more prominently and frequently than other Old Testament patriarchs from early Christian times, when he was depicted in the art of the catacombs, in mosaics, and on sarcophagi.10 The earliest illustrations of Old Testament narratives that were accessible to the Renaissance artist were those on sarcophagi, where Moses, as a typus Christi, was the most commonly depicted patriarch after Jonah, popular as a type of the resurrected Christ. A number of sarcophagi were decorated entirely with scenes of Moses, such as one with the Crossing of the Red Sea (Fig. 146)." Moses was also presented as a type of Christ in monumental cycles in basilicas such as Old St. Peter's, St. Paul's, and S. Maria Maggiore and in other works such as the doors of S. Sabina, where eight miracles of Moses and Christ are paired, including Moses Striking the Rock and the Crossing of the Red Sea (Fig. 147V 2

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FIGURE 146.

Early Christian sarcophagus, The Crossing of the Red Sea. Musei Vaticani.

FIGURE 147.

The Crossing of the Red Sea. Rome, doors of S. Sabina.

In spite of this venerable tradition, Moses was seldom represented in the Renaissance, although he was, of course, included in Old Testament cycles such as Gozzoli's ruined frescoes of 1467-84 in the Camposanto at Pisa, where there are four Moses stories, or Raphael's Logge in the Vatican, where there are two bays devoted to Moses.13 The selection of Moses as a theme for a mid-sixteenth-century chapel decoration (indeed, the choice of any Old Testament subject at all) was most unusual, and no chapel before Eleonora's had been exclusively devoted to him. One chapel decoration featuring Moses, however, was an important precedent for Bronzino, both for its Old Testament-New Testament typology and for its use of Moses as an exemplar for the chapel's patron. The frescoes painted for Sixtus I V in the Sistine Chapel are the most sustained appearance of the patriarch in Renaissance painting. Two of the scenes, Sandro Botticelli's Moses in Egypt and Midian and Rosselli's Crossing of the Red Sea, show the right-to-left sequence of the cycle on the left nave wall (Fig. 148). The commission called for eight stories of Moses, paired with scenes, opposite them, from the life of Christ, a scheme that harks back to early Christian cycles like those of Old St. Peter's and S. Maria Maggiore. This typological scheme is explicated by tituli over each painting.14 As in the Sistine Chapel cycle, Bronzino's frescoes present Moses as a typus Christi, alluding to the New Testament and to the theme of salvation. The Chapel of Eleonora, as a typical mid-cinquecento chapel with typological content, however, has no corresponding New Testament subjects and no inscriptions over its Old Testament scenes; thus the typological correspondences between Moses and Christ are not spelled out; the viewer is left, much as in the cycles in the Chapel of the Bastie d'Urfe (see Fig. 144) and Pisa cathedral, to make the connection between these scenes and the Lamentation altarpiece. In Florence, Siena, and Pisa in the 1520s and 1530s Moses subjects were sometimes represented, for reasons that remain unclear. Some of these works, such as Perino del Vaga's Crossing of the Red Sea, a large chiaroscuro painted in 1523 for Raffaello di Sandro, chaplain of S. Lorenzo (Fig. 149), and Rosso's Moses and the Daughters of Jethro, painted for Giovanni Bandini in the same year (see Fig. 76), have no demonstrably typological context.15 Others are Old Testament narrative cycles in which a typological meaning is implicit. In 1525 Jacone and Bachiacca decorated an arch in Piazza S. Felice with nine Old Testament paintings—according to Vasari, "la maggior parte de' fatti di Mose" (the majority on the deeds

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"itZVr,

g

it- -t i 1

»

t

•>

t

FIGURE 148.




-ft a

T

».

»

Cosimo Rosselli, The Crossing of the Red Sea and Sandro Botticelli, Moses in Egypt and Midian. Vatican, Sistine Chapel.

FIGURE 149

{opposite). Perino del Vaga, The Crossing of the Red Sea. Uffizi.

of Moses).16 Bachiacca later painted two panels, Moses Striding the Roct\ (Edinburgh, National Gallery) and The Gathering of Manna (Washington, National Gallery), apparently based on these lost ephemera.17 And Beccafumi was also occupied with the theme in the Old Testament cycle in the black and white marble pavimento of Siena cathedral: in 1524-25 he designed the frieze Moses Striding the Roc\ (Fig. 150), which is placed toward the altar because of its typological

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MOSES

FIGURE I 50.

Domenico Beccafumi, Moses Striking the Rock- Siena cathedral.

reference to the Sacrament; and in 1529 he completed the large Scenes of Moses on Mt. Sinai next to it, an arrangement that suggests a giant altarpiece with its predella.18 Finally, in the 1530s the elaborate Old Testament cycle in the apse of Pisa cathedral that I have mentioned was undertaken.

The Gathering of Manna and Moses Striking the Rock, and The Brazen Serpent The decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora exemplifies the traditional linking of the Old and N e w Testaments in the context of the Passion and the sacraments. Among the individual frescoes in the chapel, the linked scenes of Moses' miracles in the desert—the Gathering of Manna and the Striking of the Rock (see Plate 8)—are the most clearly typological. Indeed, whenever these particular episodes appear together (beginning as early as the fourth-century doors of S. Sabina), their symbolic meaning is understood, for one prefigures the bread, the other the wine, of the Eucharist. 19 The eucharistic prefiguration of the manna is drawn from one of the key texts in the literature of the Sacrament, the passage in the Gospel of St. John where Christ promises salvation through the Eucharist and compares himself with the manna: I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it

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and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.20 This fresco, then, alludes to the Eucharist, and to the chapel's eucharistic Lamentation. There are three episodes in the story in Exodus 16:13-36—the fall, the gathering, and the reservation of the manna. Bronzino shows all of these, emphasizing, however, the gathering and reservation of the manna, which allude to the reception and reservation of the Sacrament. All but one of the scene's ten figures are depicted in the act of gathering the manna and placing it in receptacles; the eucharistic significance of the scene is underscored by the punctilious description of the manna itself and by the reverence of the women and children who catch it in their aprons before it falls to the ground.21 Bronzino shows no fewer than six urns and basins for the reservation of the manna, including the great golden urn held up by the prominent nude in the foreground; he wears elegant buskins like those of Moses himself in The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua (see Plate 6) and has his mantle pulled over his head as a sign of respect for his task. This man must be Aaron, commanded by Moses to collect manna in the urn, which was then placed in the A r k of the Covenant (Exodus 16:33-34; " i n tabernáculo reservandum"). Aaron, carrying a large urn, must have been a similarly imposing figure (now much damaged) in Battista Franco's Gathering of Manna at Pisa (see Fig. 145), which may have been a source for Bronzino's depiction. In the N e w Testament, the "golden urn holding the manna" (Hebrews 9:4) was considered a physical symbol of the Old Covenant, as contrasted with the spiritual symbols of the New. The priest Aaron, then, prefigured the priest who reserves the Eucharist after the Mass, placing it in a tabernacle of the Sacrament.22 As a result of this typology, the Gathering of Manna and other subjects relating to the Sacrament were often placed next to the altar in chapel cycles. This is the case with Franco's painting in Pisa, with Sicolante's in the Chapel of the Bastie d'Urfé (see Fig. 144), and also with Salviati's Moses and Aaron before the Tabernacle of 1548-49 in the Chapel of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (Rome, Palazzo della Cancellería), where The Gathering of Manna is painted on the vault over the altar, with St. Paul Displaying the Eucharist on the opposite wall 23 Bronzino's Manna fresco is thus appropriately located next to the altar of the Chapel of Eleonora, where Mass was celebrated and where the Sacrament may have been reserved.

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Moses Striking the Rock, the second miracle of Moses in the wilderness, is told in Exodus 17:4-7 following the Gathering of Manna. 21 This subject had important typological associations with both the Eucharist and baptism. T h e eucharistie préfiguration is taken from St. Paul (1 Corinthians 10:4), for whom the rock was Christ: "All [our fathers] ate the same supernatural food and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ." 25 This typology was elaborated in the Middle Ages in such a way that the water prefigured the blood flowing from Christ's side, the subject being paired in the Biblta pauperum with the crucified Christ pierced by the soldier's lance.26 A typological association of Bronzino's Moses Striding the Rocf{ with Christ's wounding by the lance resonates in the chapel, where the lance itself is displayed in the upper part of the altarpiece, held by an angel on a line directly above the wound in Christ's chest (see Plate 11), and where the impaling of Christ is reenacted in St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata (see Plate 17). In the water flowing from the rock, the church fathers also saw a type of the water of the baptismal rite, and Moses Striking the Rock was interpreted as a préfiguration of baptism. Indeed, with the Deluge and the Crossing of the Red Sea, it is one of the great water subjects of the Old Testament, all of which were taken as types of baptism and hence of salvation. In art this typology goes back to early Christian catacombs and to sarcophagi, where Moses Striking the Rock was the most frequently depicted Old Testament episode (the Gathering of Manna, however, does not appear at all).27 Sarcophagus representations of Moses Striking the Rock were an important source for Bronzino. 28 Typically, the subject is shown on sarcophagi as a vertically composed scene, with the figures piled one atop the other in a compressed space, with an often-repeated motif of drinkers at Moses' feet. All these features are seen in Bronzino's fresco (see Plate 8). Another stock figure in these sarcophagi that appears in an example at the Vatican (Fig. 151)29 is a man behind Moses w h o raises his hands in wonder at the miracle; this too Bronzino repeated. T h e subject of Moses Striking the Rock was uncommon in earlier Renaissance art (it is not included in Gozzoli's cycle in the Pisa Camposanto or in that of the Sistine Chapel, for example); in the first Moses bay of Raphael's Logge, however, Moses Striding the Roc\ is juxtaposed with The Meeting of Jacob and Rachel at the Well, and both are presented as préfigurations of baptism, alluded to by a Baptism of Christ,3" A m o n g works contemporary with Bronzino's chapel decoration,

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FIGURE

151.

Early Christian sarcophagus, Moses Striding the Rock^, detail, Moses and other figures. Musei Vaticani.

Moses Striking the Rock is represented in Bachiacca's painting of the subject in Edinburgh; he, too, includes the supine drinker and the awestruck man.31 The drinker also appears in Beccafumi's pavimento (see Fig. 150), where Vasari singled it out for praise.32 In these depictions of the episode from the 1530s, as in Bronzino's fresco, the emphasis has shifted from Moses himself to the eager crowd of people who look with wonder at the water and enjoy its benefits. The eucharistie préfiguration of Moses Striding the Roct{ and the Gathering of Manna was heightened by the addition to this wall of Allori's Angels with a Chalice, Host, and Globe (see Fig. 38), an explicit emblem of the Eucharist that suggests how central the chapel's eucharistie theme was considered to be by its Medici patrons. Allori depicted a globe (with Italy at its center) partly covered by a curtain held up by two angels. The angels also hold an ornate gold chalice marked

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FIGURE 152.

Alessandro Allori, The Gathering of Manna and Moses Striding the Roc!{. S. Maria Novella.

with a cross;33 suspended above it is a large host stamped with a representation of the Crucifixion and inscribed

AGNUS

DEI.34

In 1581-84, just after painting this sopraporta, Allori depicted these same Old Testament types of the Eucharist in a large lunette in the refectory at S. Maria Novella (Fig. 152).35 He made drawings after Bronzino's frescoes on the chapel's north wall, and he incorporated a number of his master's ideas into his own, more obviously eucharistic, fresco.36 Moses Striking the Rock is represented to the sides of the lunette and the Gathering of Manna above, with inscriptions (from Psalm

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FIGURE 153.

Alessandro Allori, study for The Gathering of Manna and Moses Striding the Roc!^ and The Last Supper. Uffizi.

7 7 : 1 5 - 1 6 , 24) identifying the subjects: above the Gathering of Manna, COELI

(bread of heaven); below Moses Striking the Rock,

FLVMINA

and

PLVIT

AQVAS . . .

EDVXIT

PANEM

TAMQVAM

(He made streams of water flow like rivers [from the rock])

ILLIS M A N N A

AD M A N D V C A N D V M

(He rained down upon them manna

to eat). A t the center of the lunette was a panel painting by Allori of the Last Supper. It has been removed, but his preparatory drawing shows the typological ensemble as he originally planned it, with the two Old Testament types of the Sacrament above the N e w Testament scene (Fig. 153). 37

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The emphasis on the theme of the Sacrament in the Chapel of Eleonora decoration—especially in the altarpiece, which I have characterized as a eucharistic Lamentation;

the north wall frescoes, which show types of the Eucharist; and

even Allori's later addition—raises the question of the chapel's dedication. Was it a chapel of the Sacrament? On the basis of the subjects depicted in the decoration, Maurice Cope did not hesitate to include it in his study of sixteenth-century chapels dedicated to the Sacrament, emphasizing that chapels of the Sacrament like Palma Giovane's Sacristy of S. Giacomo dall'Orio of 1575 (a eucharistic cycle with an Entombment altarpiece and depictions of the Red Sea, the Brazen Serpent, and the Gathering of Manna) are decorated with such subjects.38 This is certainly possible, but the suggestion raises more questions than it answers. Although contemporary sources designate no chapel in the Palazzo as dedicated to the Sacrament (the Chapel of the Priors was dedicated to S. Bernardino; Cosimo's chapel was dedicated in 1558 to SS. Cosmas and Damian), the Sacrament must have been reserved in the Priors' chapel, at least before Eleonora's was built, and that function may have been transferred to the Chapel of Eleonora—appropriately decorated with eucharistic themes—in the 1540s. In general, however, chapels began to be formally designated as chapels of the Sacrament only after the proliferation of the Counter-Reformation theme of the veneration of the Eucharist (exemplified in Allori's sopraporta). Moreover, we lack documentation: if Eleonora's chapel was actually dedicated to the Sacrament (or to the Corpus Domini), the Sacrament would have been reserved there. Papal dispensation would have been required for such a chapel, and there is no record of any. Furthermore, there is no payment or inventory record of a tabernacle specifically for Eleonora's chapel, which would have been essential for a chapel of the Sacrament.39 The question of the dedication thus remains open.40 The story of the Brazen Serpent, the third of the miracles in the desert that Bronzino depicted in the chapel (see Plate 7), is told in Numbers 2 1 : 6 - 9 . ^

was

traditionally interpreted as a type of the Crucifixion, a typology drawn from John 3:14: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." The Israelites saved by the healing serpent were thus read as prefiguring the spiritual healing and salvation of man by Christ.41 Bronzino's model for this fresco, Michelangelo's spandrel in the Sistine Chapel (see Fig. 73), is one of four scenes of the miraculous deliverance of the Israelites

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by G o d — a l l to be read as types of salvation. In the typological context of the Chapel of Eleonora, Bronzino's allusions to the New Testament are much more pointed, and he departed from the biblical text so as to evoke the Crucifixion with unusual vividness. The text gives no specific setting for the event; Bronzino, however, placed the scene atop a hill that suggests Golgotha. According to Numbers 21

"the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every

one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.' "42 However, Bronzino's serpent is wound about an unusually prominent, boldly silhouetted cross. The Crucifixion is also evoked by the swooning woman who is held up by another (see Plate 23), a vignette that recalls the Virgin at the foot of the cross. The position of this fresco opposite the altar also relates to its préfiguration of the Crucifixion. The observer entering the chapel literally passes under the Old Testament type of the Crucifixion while looking toward the sacrificed Christ in the Lamentation altarpiece.43

The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua The typology of the Crossing of the Red Sea, the major episode represented on the chapel's south wall, is more complex than that of the three Moses episodes I have just discussed. The story of the Exodus was understood primarily as a type of salvation. Here, as elsewhere, Moses is a typus Christi, and his leading the Israelites from bondage was thought to prophesy Christ's redemption of mankind. Because of its water symbolism, the subject was also held to prefigure baptism, the initiation rite that took place in early Christian times on Easter and was thus intimately bound with both Moses' deliverance of the Jews from Egypt and Christ's deliverance of mankind by his Crucifixion. This dual interpretation was drawn from St. Paul (1 Corinthians 10:12): "I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea."44 As a scene of salvation with these profound typological associations, the Crossing of the Red Sea had a long representational history. It was the most ambitious narrative attempted on early Christian sarcophagi, often occupying the entire front panel. In a sarcophagus in the Vatican, for example, we see the classic presentation of the story, with the Egyptians drowning to the left and Moses and the Israelites arriving safely to the right (see Fig. 146).45 The subject was also included in Old Testament cycles in Rome such as the mosaics in S. Maria Maggiore and the S. Sabina doors (see Fig.

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FIGURE 154.

Titian, The Crossing of the Red Sea (woodcut). London, British Museum.

147). Its typological associations with baptism and salvation persisted in Renaissance art. For example, the Crossing of the Red Sea is a figure of salvation in Andrea Previtali's Chapel of the Pregadi, painted in 1 5 1 5 in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, where (as in the Speculum humanae salvationis) the subject is paired with a N e w Testament scene of salvation, Christ in Limbo; 46 in the same year it was depicted as a type of baptism in Raphael's Vatican Logge. 47 In the Sistine Chapel, however, where the theme of papal primacy dictated a differently focused programme, Rosselli's Red Sea (see Fig. 148) and Domenico Ghirlandaio's Christ Calling SS. Peter and Andrew are paired typologically as examples of the Old and New Laws.48 The Crossing of the Red Sea was also represented in the Renaissance in Old Testament cycles such as Gozzoli's frescoes in the Pisa Camposanto. Less commonly, the subject was combined with other Moses episodes;49 and there were

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FIGURE 1 5 5 .

Hieronymous C o c k , engraving after a version of Bronzino's Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua. Uffizi.

occasional independent representations such as Titian's great woodcut of about 1 5 1 5 (Fig. 154)50 and Perino's chiaroscuro (see Fig. 149). The Crossing of the Red Sea, as recounted in Exodus, includes three distinct episodes, all of which Bronzino depicted (see Plate 6). The first, the preparation of the Israelites for their flight from Egypt (Exodus 12:33-39), represented in Moses cycles.

51

was not

commonly

Bronzino shows the preparation in the center fore-

ground, where three youths face to the left, and in the left foreground, where there is a man with two women, each of whom is accompanied by a child. This scene is clearly one of departure: the three youths, their backs turned on the group to the right, look and gesture toward the water; the man has already begun to walk to the left, as can be seen in Bronzino's drawing for him and in the engraving after the fresco published by Hieronymous Cock about 1550 (Fig. 155),52 both of which show his left leg crossed behind the right as if to take a step.

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The man has taken the arm of the woman next to him as if to help her rise; she looks up expectantly at him, the nursing of her child interrupted. To the right of this woman are a silver ewer and a gold basin, which must be intended to represent the spoils of the Egyptians—"the jewelry of silver and gold" that is described in the biblical text (Exodus 12:35)." The most telling detail in this scene is the soft tied bundle on the man's head. This may be Bronzino's rendering of the unleavened bread dough and kneading bowls mentioned in Exodus as carried by the Israelites in their haste to depart: "So the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading bowls being bound up in their mantles on their shoulders" (Exodus 12:34; s e e a l s o

I2:

39)-

This detail seems to have been adapted by Bronzino from a Red Sea sarcophagus—perhaps the one in the Vatican—where a man to the far right, who holds a child by the wrist (much as Bronzino's man holds the woman), has a tied bundle around his neck (see Fig. 146).54 Bronzino has merely shifted the object to the man's head. The unleavened bread carried by this man may have a symbolic significance. He is the compositional counterpart of the man holding the golden urn directly across the chapel in The Gathering of Manna (see Plate 26). The man with the urn is Aaron and his urn contains the manna prefiguring the Eucharist. The contrasting pair of figures thus evokes the transformation of the humble bread of the fleeing Israelites into the symbolic "bread of heaven." The second episode in the Exodus is the drowning of the pharaoh's army, and the third is the safe arrival of the Israelites on the opposite shore (Exodus 1 4 : 2 1 29), which Bronzino depicted to the right behind the large foreground figures (Fig. 156). One of the Israelites carries the tied bread bundle, thus linking this scene with that of the departure, and a camel emerging from the water with the group identifies the locale (and may allude to the forthcoming wanderings of the Israelites in the desert). Moses is recognizable as the white-bearded man in blue at the water's edge. He does not hold his rod over the water, as in some sixteenthcentury representations (see Figs. 149 and 154), but follows an older tradition, exemplified in the S. Sabina doors (see Fig. 147); his hands are outstretched in an ancient attitude of prayer.55 To the far right, cut off by the fresco's frame, Bronzino shows the celebratory dance of Miriam and her companions (Exodus 15:1-21). The closing of the waters over the pharaoh's army and the arrival of the Israelites in the background of Bronzino's fresco follow the usual left-to-right sequence of the action and conform with the traditional iconography of the subject derived

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FIGURE 156.

C h a p e l of Eleonora, The Crossing of the Red Sea, detail, the arrival of the Israelites.

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from sarcophagi (see Fig. 146). In most representations of the Crossing of the Red Sea that I have cited (an exception is the Sistine Chapel fresco, which reads from right to left because of the narrative sequence of the scenes; see Fig. 148), the picture space is divided between the drowning of the pharaoh's army to the left and the arrival of the Israelites on the right. T h e group gathered around Moses in the right foreground of Bronzino's fresco, however, has no precedent in representations of the Crossing of the Red Sea. T h e seated Moses is the largest of the three depictions of the patriarch in the cycle; he holds his rod, points at the blond youth in front of him, and is surrounded by a circle of Israelites intent on his action. As I have suggested in an earlier study, this scene does not even belong to the story of the Crossing but depicts Moses appointing Joshua as his successor.56 T h e scene I identify as Moses appointing Joshua has been read as part of the Crossing of the Red Sea since Vasari described the fresco as representing "quando [Moise] passa il Mare Rosso, e la sommersione di Faraone," 57 naming only one of the two scenes represented h e r e — j u s t as his description of the wall opposite mentions only The Gathering of Manna (see Plate 8).58 T h a t two scenes are represented here as in the fresco on the north wall is indicated by the discontinuous composition, the separation of background and foreground, and the appearance of Moses in two places. Furthermore, the group to the lower right is unconnected with either the arrival or the celebration of the passage in the right background and is separated from the departure scene by a clearly marked caesura: the scene is cut off from the Red Sea by a wall, and not one of the people grouped around Moses looks toward the sea. Indeed, Moses' pointing gesture carries the action forward toward the blond youth, w h o m I identify as Joshua, w h o in turn gestures out of the painting away from the sea. In fact, even the time frame of this scene seems not to be that of the rest of the fresco. Moses is dressed differently h e r e — i n rich purple and gold robes and elaborate gold-laced blue buskins. A n d , unlike the Moses of the background arrival scene, he is depicted with the rays of God's light emanating from his head. These properly belong to Moses only after his second descent from Mt. Sinai with the Tablets of the Law. 59 Admittedly, the rays were used indiscriminately by Renaissance artists in depicting the patriarch; the contrast between the two Moses figures in this fresco is striking, however, and Bronzino may have intended it to indicate that the foreground scene should be read as taking place after the Exodus. T h e story of Joshua's appointment, one of the last acts of Moses and one of crucial importance for Israel, is related twice in the Old Testament. In Deuteron-

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omy (31:7-8, 1 4 - 1 5 , 23) it is simply said that when Moses was dying he summoned Joshua to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, but in Numbers (27:18-23) the story is recounted in greater detail: And the Lord said to Moses, "Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay your hand on him; cause him to stand before Eleazar the priest and all the congregation, and you shall commission him in their sight. You shall invest him with some of your authority, that all the congregation of the people of Israel may obey. And he shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgement of the Urim before the Lord; at his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he and all the people of Israel with him, the whole congregation." And Moses did as the Lord commanded him; he took Joshua and caused him to stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole congregation, and he laid his hands upon him, and commissioned him as the Lord directed through Moses.

The investiture scene has various iconographical traditions, including the laying on of hands, Moses giving his rod to Joshua, and Moses pointing to Joshua.60 The subject is rare in Renaissance art, but it received monumental treatment in the Sistine Chapel in Signorelli's fresco, The Last Acts and Death of Moses (Fig. 157).61 There, Moses (with prominent golden rays emanating from his head) hands his golden rod to Joshua, and the priest Eleazar stands behind the kneeling youth. Bronzino seems to have based his scene on Signorelli's representation. Allowing for the different stylistic conventions of the cinquecento (the stock Maniera gesture of Moses and the repoussoir figures who close the circle in front of him), the two scenes are remarkably similar—even to the triangular arrangement of the three principals, the group of four spectators to the right behind Moses, and the two between him and Eleazar. Like Signorelli's priest, Bronzino's Eleazar is bearded, holds a book, and points to Moses as if to signal the import of his action. But, most significant, Joshua as painted by both Signorelli and Bronzino is young and blond, reflecting a traditional type of the youthful prophet depicted without his usual military attributes, but with the diadem that is his attribute as the leader of the Israelites to the Promised Land.62 If Bronzino's fresco on the south wall of the chapel actually represents the episode of Moses appointing Joshua as well as the Crossing of the Red Sea, then

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FIGURE

157.

L u c a Signorelli, The Last Acts and Death of Moses, detail, Moses appointing Joshua. Vatican, Sistine Chapel.

it reads quite differently in the context of the chapel's religious imagery. It was Joshua to w h o m Moses gave the law; thus the subject of Moses appointing Joshua is a law-giving episode, which introduces into the cycle a crucial aspect of Moses' epic. Moses Appointing Joshua also becomes the climactic scene in the cycle. In the chapel the Moses narrative would then begin on the south wall with the E x o dus, moving counterclockwise and chronologically through the three scenes of Moses' miracles in the wilderness and concluding at the near end of the same wall with the appointment of Joshua. 63 This last scene suggests the future and the ar-

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rival of the Israelites in the Promised Land. It also underscores the typological theme of the whole chapel decoration, for as the New Testament fulfilled the Old, so Joshua followed Moses, and both were types of Christ. As Moses' successor, Joshua looks back at Moses and to the past of the Old Covenant, pointing out of the painting toward the future—the New Covenant and the Redemption, represented in the chapel's altarpiece of the Lamentation.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

THE

S A I N T S OF T H E

VAULT

Bronzino painted the vault of the Chapel of Eleonora as a vision of heaven (see Plate 5). Its blue sky, garlands, saints in their compartments, and putti marking the corners reflect the imagery of the traditional "dome of heaven" inherited by the Renaissance f r o m early Christian art.1 But the way Bronzino has realized this ancient imagery is anything but traditional. T h e presence of G o d is symbolized by the radiance emanating from the central medallion, which inspires and illumines the saints—particularly Francis and Jerome, w h o direct their ecstatic gazes toward the light. T h e mortal nature of these saints (and of St. John) is stressed by their subordination to the supernatural light, in contrast to the Archangel Michael, who simply exists within it. By replacing the landscape against which the episodes of the three saints were traditionally depicted in Renaissance art with blue sky and billowing clouds, Bronzino raised the saints to the heavenly realm of the archangel. Traditionally, quadripartite vault decorations in family chapels such as Eleonora's were decorated with prophetic figures such as Old Testament prophets or sibyls, w h o foretold the coming of Christ. If saints were selected instead, the usual choice was the four evangelists—witnesses to the Incarnation—as in the Chapel of the Priors in the Palazzo (see Fig. 15). But the vault of the Chapel of Eleonora depicts four diverse saints, whose relationships to one another are not immediately apparent. W h y were they chosen?

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The personal preference of the chapel's Medici patrons might explain the choice, but neither the names of the vault saints nor their feast days figure in the lives of Cosimo and Eleonora, and, with the exception of St. Francis (see Chapter 12), none of them seems to have had personal significance for the ducal couple. Three of the saints, however, had Medicean associations and had been depicted often in earlier Medici art. St. Francis had long been associated with the family, beginning with Cosimo il Vecchio's patronage of Michelozzo's monastery Church of the Zoccoli di S. Francesco (near the Medici Villa Cafaggiolo) and of the Chapel of the Novitiates (1434-45) in S. Croce. St. Francis had appeared regularly in Medici altarpieces of the quattrocento, along with the other family saints Cosmas, Damian, and Lorenzo (and, sometimes, Jerome). St. John the Evangelist was the patron saint of Giovanni di Bicci, founder of the two branches of the family, from each of which Duke Cosimo was descended (see Fig. 17). The Old Sacristy in S. Lorenzo was dedicated to the evangelist, and Donatello decorated it with reliefs of his stories. St. Jerome, in vogue as a patron of humanism in late quattrocento Florence, was the subject of a number of paintings owned by the Medici at that time, perhaps indicating a special devotion to him.2 Such an interest was explicitly demonstrated by Cosimo il Vecchio, who had the church and convent of the Order of the Eremite di S. Girolamo (the Hieronymites, reformers of the Third Order of St. Francis) in Fiesole rebuilt in 1450.3 A sacra conversazione by a follower of Fra Angelico (Avignon, Petit Palais), which bears the Medici arms and shows Jerome with the other Medici saints Francis, Lorenzo, Cosmas, and Damian, was probably commissioned by Cosimo for the church in the 1450s.4 The Medici continued to be the recognized protectors of the Hieronymite order, and Duke Cosimo revived Medicean patronage of the Hieronymite church built by his ancestor at exactly the time when Bronzino was painting the chapel vault. In its cloister he erected a large well, which bore his arms and was inscribed

COSMVS

M E D I C E S F L O R E N T DVX II M D X L I . 5

In spite of the connection between three of the vault saints and the Medici, the pattern breaks down with St. Michael, who had not previously played a role in their art. Thus we must seek other reasons for this particular combination of saints and for their inclusion in the decoration. Michael Levey has observed that the saints are exemplars of "four types of sanctity: Archangel, Evangelist, Father of the Church, and a modern saint."6 Some such scheme seems to have been intended, but the chapel's saints are not just diverse types; they represent four classes of saints as determined by the Church: angel (Michael), evangelist (John), doctor

239

(Jerome), and confessor (Francis). This suggests that they were chosen to represent a microcosmic history of the Church in the small space of the chapel, an idea that might be confirmed by the presence in the original wings of the altarpiece of representatives of two further classes of sainthood: prophet (John the Baptist) and martyr (Cosmas). If a presentation of the broad theme of sainthood was in fact intended here, it might be significant that the saints are also arranged historically: like the Moses narratives they proceed counterclockwise, from St. Michael over the altar to St. Francis over the south wall, representing successive eras in the history of salvation. In this sense, the vault might also be seen to echo the "history" presented on the altar wall, with its prophets of the Passion, its image of the sacrificed Christ, and its saintly witnesses. But these general considerations do not tell us why a particular angel, evangelist, doctor, and confessor were selected for the vault. Why Michael, John, Jerome, and Francis? How do these saints relate to the chapel's themes of prophecy and fulfillment, of the Passion of Christ, and of the sacraments? Some indicators are found in the relationship between each saint and the painting on the wall below him. Presiding over the altar, the archangel Michael occupies the most prominent position on the vault (see Plate 3). St. Michael is the weigher of souls and guardian of the elect at the Last Judgment (Daniel 5:27; 12:1), a theme that connects him with the representation, directly below him in the Lamentation, of angels carrying the instruments of the Passion, a motif often depicted in the Last Judgment. Bronzino shows St. Michael here with the scales in his left hand, a soul praying for protection at his right, and another soul under his left arm, enveloped in his cloak (see Plate 16). The spandrels on either side of the saint expand on his actions. Justice, whose attributes of the unsheathed sword and the scales suggest an emblem of divine justice (see Plate 13), comments on the saint as judge in the weighing of souls. Fortitude (see Fig. 37) comments on the strength of the angelic victor over the Devil. After producing his modello for the vault (see Plate 15), Bronzino changed the design of St. Michael to emphasize the saint's iconographic links with the altar wall and heighten the contrast between him and the other vault saints. Whereas the foreshortening and illusionism of the vault saints is more accentuated in the fresco than in the modello and their gazes are shifted up toward the heavenly radiance, Bronzino made none of these changes in St. Michael. Moreover, the

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repeated diagonals o f the figure echo those o f D a v i d and the Sibyl below, a link reinforced by the saint's d o w n w a r d gaze to the right, w h i c h leads the observer's eye d o w n to the altar wall. A last connection between Michael and the altar wall is his relation to the prophecy o f the Resurrection inscribed below him. A s the angel w h o will sound the last t r u m p e t at the resurrection of the dead (i Corinthians 15:52), Michael also signals Christ's Resurrection. Perhaps Michael's association with this event accounts for a curious detail in Bronzino's representation o f h i m — t h e caterpillar that is prominently displayed on his left shoulder. T h e chrysalis o f the caterpillar that will become a butterfly is a traditional symbol o f the Resurrection. 7 T h e theme o f the Resurrection is echoed in the upward-spiraling poses and ecstatic u p w a r d g a z e s o f the t w o putti flanking Michael (see Plates 20-21), especially the one on the right, w h o stands directly above the Sibyl's Resurrection prophecy. A n d even the fruits on the garlands behind them carry out the theme: thè putto to the left stands over a large open pomegranate and three pears, the latter a fruit o f C h r i s t and the former a c o m m o n symbol o f the Resurrection, as is the g o u r d b e t w e e n the legs of the putto to the right. 8 Besides e m p h a s i z i n g important themes of the altar-wall paintings over w h i c h he presides, St. Michael embodies the continuity between the O l d and N e w Testaments that is f u n d a m e n t a l to the chapel's imagery. A s the only saint w h o appears in the O l d Testament, Michael was considered the protector of the H e b r e w nation and was associated w i t h the salvation o f the Israelites as their military defender. 9 H e appears, for example, as the angel w h o led the E x o d u s (Exodus 14:19), and he is featured in the story of Joshua, w h o m he supported w i t h d r a w n sword at Jericho (Joshua 5:13-15). St. Michael is also connected directly w i t h Moses t h r o u g h the story o f his dispute w i t h the Devil over the body o f the patriarch. 10 Finally, the saint sums up the theme of Redemption in the chapel. In his fight w i t h the devil and his casting out of the rebel angels Michael is a type o f Christ, f o r e s h a d o w i n g Christ's salvation o f m a n k i n d . T h e text for this subject is taken f r o m the A p o c a l y p s e o f St. John the Evangelist, w h o writes of the conflict at the end o f time that reflects the battle in heaven at the beginning o f time (Revelation 12:7-9):

N o w war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down,

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that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. St. John is represented on the vault next to St. Michael, and his vision of the archangel—indeed, the apocalyptic t h e m e — m a y have been seen as a link between the two saints. T h e stories of the remaining saints—John, Jerome, and Francis—placed over the chapel's frescoes echo the themes of exile, spiritual isolation, and divine intervention that are found in the epic of Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness. Like their Old Testament predecessors—and like St. John the Baptist of the altar wall, all three saints are shown in the symbolic wilderness, where they join in communion with G o d and are rewarded for their faith. But they also relate to the N e w Testament, for each of these saints has a special connection with the Passion of Christ, hence to the theme of the chapel's altarpiece: St. John witnesses the Passion in his Gospel, St. Jerome meditates on it, and St. Francis relives it. Moreover, each was considered a eucharistic saint—John for his writings about the Sacrament, Jerome for the story of his last Communion, and Francis for his devotion to the Sacrament. 11 St. John is portrayed as the aged evangelist in exile on Patmos writing the book of Revelation as he turns to the eagle, symbol of his divine inspiration (see Plate 19). As author of the A p o c a l y p s e — a reinterpretation of the Old Testament in light of the N e w — J o h n exemplifies the chapel's theme of prophecy and fulfillment.12 T h e saint's writings are also closely related to the typological meanings of the Moses stories on the chapel walls. John repeatedly mentions Moses as a prototype of Christ, beginning with the general statement "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth come through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17; see also 5:45-47; 7:19-22). A n d John's Gospel was the major source for typological connections between the stories of Moses and the Israelites, the Passion of Christ (John 17-19), and the sacraments. Finally, since his Gospel is the most direct testimony to the Passion and the most extensive exposition of the doctrine of the Eucharist (John 6), John is also related to the N e w Testament images in the chapel's altarpiece. Like John, St. Jerome echoes the Mosaic theme of isolation in the wilderness. Bronzino heightened this theme as he evolved the figure: in the modello, the saint gazes in adoration at a crucifix placed slightly in front of him (see Plate 15); in the

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fresco the crucifix is omitted and Jerome looks directly up into the supernatural radiance above (see Plate 18). T h i s change serves to emphasize more forcefully the message o f divine aid to the faithful, echoing the theme of G o d ' s intervention in the Moses scenes below. T h e omission o f the cross (most unusual in representations of this subject) also makes it clear that St. Jerome beneath and the Lamentation

is to be read together with The Brazen

Serpent

opposite. A s w e have seen, the prominent cross in

The Brazen Serpent emphasizes the subject as a type of the Crucifixion. T h i s cross is directly under the saint (see Plate 4), and the depiction o f another cross w i t h h i m w o u l d be redundant. Moreover, his pose, w i t h its planar arrangement o f the torso and outstretched arms, imitates that o f the crucified Christ. St. Jerome h i m self thus becomes a living crucifix, relating to the imagery recalling the C r u c i f i x ion in the altarpiece across the chapel f r o m him. Jerome is also closely connected w i t h St. Francis, represented in the adjacent c o m p a r t m e n t o f the vault (see Plate 5). For Jerome is not portrayed here in his role as a D o c t o r o f the C h u r c h but as a penitent hermit, as he appears in the art o f the churches and convents o f the Hieronymites, w h o were d e v o t e d — a s were the F r a n c i s c a n s — t o the eremitic life.13 T h e s e t w o kneeling penitents in the w i l derness read as a pair on the vault. Indeed, because of their devotion to the C r u cifixion, Jerome and Francis had long been depicted together in Franciscan sacre conversazioni,

E n t o m b m e n t s , and, especially, Crucifixions. For example, in one by

A n d r e a della Robbia in the C h a p e l o f the Stigmata at L a Verna, both saints kneel and look u p in ecstasy, as they do in the chapel vault (Fig. 158).14 St. Francis Receiving

the Stigmata

(see Plate 17) is immediately distinguished

f r o m the other scenes by being the only one that represents a m i r a c l e — t h e stigmatization, w h i c h took place at L a Verna in the Casentino (Tuscany) on 12 September 1224. B r o n z i n o first laid out the scene in his modello

w i t h St. Francis

facing right (toward St. Jerome) and Brother L e o (an apocryphal addition to the event) facing left, shielding his eyes f r o m the divine radiance (see Plate 15). T h e i m a g e o f the crucified Christ before w h i c h Francis kneels is lightly sketched to the upper right. In the fresco, the t w o figures are reversed, so that the composition closely resembles traditional Florentine representations o f the subject, such as D o m e n i c o Ghirlandaio's fresco in the Sassetti C h a p e l at S. Trinita (Fig. 159). B r o n z i n o transformed his quattrocento m o d e l by the sheer monumentality of the figures in relation to their restricted space and by the omission o f the usual landscape setting. Moreover, as Millard Meiss has observed, there is an important

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FIGURE 158.

D E V O T I O N A L

Andrea della Robbia, Crucifixion.

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La Verna, Chapel of the Stigmata.

C H A P E L

«•-¿sí 1

FIGURE I 59.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, St. Francis Receiving

the Stigmata.

S. Trinità,

Sassetti Chapel.

deviation from Bronzino's models in the iconography of this fresco: the crucifix is omitted and the divine radiance alone symbolizes the source of the stigmata and the saint's exaltation." Bronzino has treated St. Francis like St. Jerome; both saints commune directly with the divine radiance, and their spiritual relationship and common devotion to the Crucifixion are emphasized. T h e multiple connections between St. Francis and the chapel's typological and sacramental themes make St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata the most complex representation on the vault. Among the vault saints only Francis is related typologically to both Christ and Moses, and he thus links the Old and New Testament elements of the chapel's imagery. Francis was held by his followers to be

Francis-

cas alter Christus (another Christ), an identification most dramatically revealed in the miracle of the stigmatization."' Bronzino's saint, turned almost frontally, his

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arms outstretched and three of the stigmata revealed, reenacts the Crucifixion, echoing both David's prophecy of the Crucifixion and the dead Christ of the altarpiece.17 The theme of St. Francis as a new Moses appeared in Franciscan writings immediately following the saint's death in 1226; it was later elaborated, particularly by St. Bonaventure. 18 Francis, like Moses, was seen as a religious founder and lawgiver and as a leader of a pilgrimage; indeed, the Franciscan order was conceived as a living extension of the Exodus. St. Bonaventure writes in the Legenda minor: Those who abandon the Egypt of this world can follow Francis with complete confidence; the Cross of Christ will part the waters of the sea for them like Moses' rod, and they will traverse the desert to the promised land of the living, where they will enter by the miraculous power of the Cross, having crossed the Jordan of our human mortality.19

Moreover, through the stigmatization—the very event represented by Bronzino on the vault over The Crossing of the Red Sea—Francis

was most closely associated

with Moses of the Exodus. His wilderness at La Verna was equated with Moses' desert and the divinely sanctioned Franciscan rule with the Covenant. When Elias of Cortona, vicar general of the order, announced the stigmatization after Francis's death, he proclaimed Francis a new Moses, giving the "law and the covenant to his people." 20 And for St. Bonaventure the stigmatization revealed God's approbation of the Franciscan rule: " H e [Francis] had dictated everything as it was revealed to him by God. . . . This was proved by God's own testimony only a short time afterwards when Francis received the stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the seal of Christ. . . with which he gave the rule and its author his divine approval." 21 St. Francis's receipt of the stigmata, then, is the very event that seemed to his followers to prove that he was both a new Moses and Franciscus alter Christus. Finally, St. Francis was traditionally connected in Franciscan thought with all the other saints of the vault. He was linked in his own lifetime with St. Michael, represented in the adjacent panel: before receiving the stigmata, he had retreated to L a Verna to observe the vigil of the feast of St. Michael; consequently the Fran-

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FIGURE I6O.

Giovanni della Robbia, Lamentation.

La Verna, Chapel of the Pietà.

ciscans observed a cult of the archangel that was closely associated with the stigmatization. 22 A n d he was connected with Jerome and John in Franciscan art works such as Giovanni della Robbia's altarpiece of the Lamentation in the Chapel of the Pietà at L a Verna, where SS. Francis, Michael, and Jerome stand behind the Pietà group (which includes St. John the Evangelist) with St. Anthony of Padua (Fig. 160).23 With the exception of the last (who had no cult in Florence), these are the saints of the chapel vault. T h e fact that Bronzino's saints were among those favored by the Franciscans may have been a factor in the choice of the subjects of the vault, since St. Francis was probably the personal choice of the chapel's patrons (see Chapter 12).

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47

In sum, whatever other meanings Bronzino's four saints may have, the scenes in the vault read as graphic tituli above the chapel's walls, each relating to a major theme of the painting below: John, the preeminent eucharistic saint, comments on Moses Striking the Rock and the Gathering of Manna, types of the Eucharist; Jerome, who adores the crucified Christ, comments on the Brazen Serpent, type of the Crucifixion; Michael alludes to the Resurrection, potential in the dead Christ of the altarpiece and heralded by the Sibyl's prophecy; and Francis, the new Moses, relates to the Exodus. Later changes in the vault decoration—Bronzino's replacement of the MediciToledo stemma with a three-headed Trinity against a gold background and his addition

of

fruits and

flowers

appropriate

to the saints

24

in

the

vault

25

compartments —altered the vault's meaning (see Fig. 46X The obliteration of the secular coat of arms and the substitution of a traditional emblem of the Trinity accords with the conservative and dogmatic iconography of the other additions made to the chapel decoration after Bronzino completed the first campaign of work in 1545: the altar wings with the Annunciation and the emblematic overdoor, Angels with a Chalice, Host, and Globe, which makes explicit the central theme of the Sacrament in the chapel's original devotional programme.

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CHAPTER NINE

H I S T O R Y , M Y T H , AND PROPAGANDA

IN C O S I M O

DE' M E D I C I ' S E A R L Y

ART

Each of the Old and New Testament subjects Bronzino represented in the Chapel of Eleonora is integral to what might be called the "devotional programme" of the decoration, as I have discussed it in Part 3. It can be shown, however, that the religious significance of each painting is complemented by a secondary, Medicean, level of meaning. There was a tradition in Medici art for such subtexts. Moreover, the profound attachment of the literati and artists of mid-sixteenth-century Florence—especially Bronzino himself—to double meanings, and anomalies in the choice and handling of the sacred subjects all suggest this other level of intention on the part of Duke Cosimo, his advisers, and his artist, a level anticipated, moreover, in the reception of the work by its viewers. With rare exceptions, works of art commissioned by Cosimo throughout his long rule had a Medicean meaning, or significato] as Vasari expressed it in his Ragionamenti, begun in the late 1550s. That is, beyond their primary or overt meaning, these works celebrated the Medici family and sometimes even functioned as political propaganda.2 In a manner unprecedented in the Renaissance, public and private purposes overlapped in Cosimo's art, his ideology determining the content of many images that might at first seem innocent of political significance. Although the Chapel of Eleonora is hardly a propagandistic work that publicly celebrates Cosimo's rule, like the wedding apparato of 1539 or Vasari's

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decoration of the Sala Grande in the Palazzo almost thirty years later, it nonetheless has substantial Medicean significato. Works of art commissioned by Duke Cosimo during the first decade of the principato and those dating from after the middle of the century were very different in ideology and, consequently, in style. As might be expected, political messages were most fully elaborated in the art of the later years of Cosimo's rule— after his power had been consolidated, the continuity of his dynasty assured, and his territories expanded.3 By about 1550, the mythology of the principato had become well established, its themes and formulas crystallized, its symbols codified. Earlier writings such as those by Filippo de' Nerli (the most important of Cosimo's historians), Benedetto Varchi, Paolo Giovio, and Bernardo Segni—all commissioned by (or dedicated to) Cosimo within the first two decades of his rule—essayed a new ducal version of Medicean and Florentine history justifying Cosimo's absolutist government.4 Programmes for artistic projects that would give visual form to this mythology were devised by a smoothly functioning team of literati who had come into the duke's service in the 1540s, especially Cosimo Bartoli and Vincenzo Borghini, who collaborated with Cosimo's artists to turn out propaganda-to-order, often writing in copious detail about the Medicean meanings that works of art were intended to convey.5 The key figure of this later period was Vasari. His redecoration of the Palazzo, initiated in 1555, was (to borrow Gombrich's phrase) a pictorial panegyric lavished on Cosimo.6 Vasari also contributed to the myth of the Medici in the 1568 edition of his Vite, where he comments on the Medicean significance of some of the works of art commissioned by Cosimo. More explicitly, in the Ragionamenti (cast as a dialogue with Francesco de' Medici), he glossed the Medicean significato of his own decorations then in progress in the Palazzo, explaining time after time how the paintings related to a secondary level of Medicean meaning, or what he had Francesco call "il senso nostro."7 Cosimo's early art was no less intended to glorify himself, his family, and his rule.8 It was created in an ideological ambience distinct from that of the later years, however, and it reflects the special circumstances of the first decade of the principato. In 1537—in spite of Cosimo's youth and his sudden assumption of power, the political instability of his regime, and the ambivalence of many of those around him—the duke and his advisers began to devise a mythology justifying his rule.

251

(In this and the f o l l o w i n g chapters, I will often refer to "Cosimo's art," " C o s i m o ' s commission," etc., w i t h the understanding that the ideas behind the w o r k s c o m missioned in the duke's n a m e were not necessarily his personally but those o f his artists and artistic advisers, w h o m I will mention by name w h e n possible.) T h e y also sought to exploit the possibilities offered by art as personal propaganda. In this formative stage, myths and images were invented as the occasion d e m a n d e d , and C o s i m o ' s art, like his political ideology, was characterized by inconsistency and o p p o r t u n i s m , by an inventive and experimental use of the traditional imagery o f rulership (largely inherited f r o m antiquity) and of older Medicean formulas reinterpreted for current needs. Because o f its experimental inventiveness, the art of the duke's early years is m o r e difficult to interpret than his more predictable and more overtly propagand i s t s later art. Moreover, the literati w h o w o u l d later explain h o w the ducal art was to be read were only b e g i n n i n g to be assembled in his service. C o s i m o did not inherit a coterie o f court intellectuals f r o m D u k e Alessandro, and some o f the old g u a r d w h o m i g h t have been expected to serve as his advisers had not yet accomm o d a t e d themselves to the n e w regime. A m o n g historians, only N e r l i and Piero Vettori were in the duke's service before 1543, w h e n Varchi was called back f r o m exile. 9 B u t a considerable n u m b e r o f literati were on the scene as cultural advisers: Bartoli, Pierfrancesco G i a m b u l l a r i , Giambattista Gelli, N i c c o l o Martelli, and L u c a Martini (also an engineer in the duke's service); Gelli, Martelli, and Martini all w r o t e poetry in praise o f the duke, as, later, did Varchi. 10 T h e s e m e n were all m e m b e r s of the A c c a d e m i a degli U m i d i , founded in N o v e m b e r 1540 and dedicated to the a d v a n c e m e n t o f learning through the vernacular." It was transformed into the A c c a d e m i a Fiorentina on the auspicious date 25 M a r c h 1541 (the F l o r e n tine N e w Year's day) under the sponsorship of D u k e C o s i m o , w h o thereby m a d e a key m o v e in his attempt to control intellectual activity in Florence and to restore her cultural primacy. 12 In the years around 1540 that concern us here, these humanists and poets were in close contact w i t h Pierfrancesco Riccio ( w h o m I have mentioned often as Cosimo's secretary and m a j o r d o m o in charge o f cultural affairs) and w i t h the duke's painters and sculptors, particularly B r o n z i n o and Tribolo, the only artist m e m b e r s o f the academy. 13 B u t the close w o r k i n g relationship between artists and academicians that characterized Cosimo's later years did not yet exist. N o r did the copious literary and epistolary documentation that they left, w h i c h guides our interpretation o f C o s i m o ' s art o f the late 1550s and 1560s. A l t h o u g h there are some

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2

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letters of the 1540s by artists (notably Bandinelli; see Chapter 5), they typically comment on practical matters such as money, scheduling, and supplies, rather than on significato. Furthermore, if there was much discussion of artistic matters in the correspondence of Riccio, Pagni, and the other ducal secretaries, only the most fragmentary evidence of it survives. For example, all that remains regarding Salviati's commission to decorate the Sala delle Udienze (see Fig. 2)—iconographically the most complex cycle commissioned by Cosimo in the early 1540s—is a laconic statement in a note from Pagni ordering Riccio to have Salviati paint "tutte le opere notabili di Camillo" (all the notable deeds of Camillus).14 The authorship of the programmes for most works commissioned by Cosimo in the first decade of his rule is in fact unknown. When a name surfaces, it is because it is mentioned by Vasari, who states, for example, that Tribolo sought Varchi's advice on the garden sculptures at Villa Castello,15 or because the programme was published, as in the case of Gelli's and Giambullari's for Cosimo's wedding apparato (see Chapter 1). This description is the only example from Cosimo's early patronage of a type of text intended for a wider audience—such as Vasari's Ragionamenti or Giovanni Battista Cini's Descrizione dell'apparato for Francesco's wedding in 1565—that was more common later.16 Unlike the 1565 apparato, however, the 1539 account is not backed up by informative correspondence among those responsible for the programme. Nonetheless, it is a key document for interpreting other projects dating from Cosimo's first decade of rule, including the Chapel of Eleonora. To supplement the sparse documentary evidence directly bearing on the meaning of the Chapel of Eleonora decoration, we must turn to other sources. There is much to be gleaned from the informed opinion of Vasari—although, to be sure, he is inconsistent and there are lacunae, especially where a Medicean significato was probably taken for granted in the Vite, whose primary message was art and artists, not meaning.17 For example, there is not a word in Vasari about topical meanings in either the Sala delle Udienze Story of Camillus frescoes (see Fig. 2) or the Sala de' Dugento Story of Joseph tapestries (see Fig. 5) in the Palazzo, both of which have unmistakably Medicean programmes. In fact, the only works whose Medicean significato Vasari really explains are his own—in the Ragionamenti, whose primary purpose was to gloss their meaning. There are also clues to the interpretation of the chapel decoration in Cosimo's well-documented later art, whose themes—clearly recognizable in their fully developed form—are adumbrated in his first decade. And earlier Medici art, the

HISTORY,

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AND

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PROPAGANDA

celebratory and propagandistic function of which is often clearly set forth, is also useful as a guide to interpretation. Indeed, Medicean conceits originating in the art of Lorenzo il Magnifico and Leo X are often reflected in Cosimo's art, as are the kinds of art works that the Medici pope, in particular, commissioned—festival apparati, medals, dynastic portraits, ceremonial rooms such as the Salone at Poggio a Caiano, chapel decorations with Medicean imagery such as Michelangelo's N e w Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, and religious narratives with papal subtexts such as Raphael's tapestries The Acts of the Apostles. T h e chapel paintings can also be approached by analogy to others commissioned by Cosimo whose function was primarily didactic, and to those with explanatory inscriptions, such as the paintings for the wedding apparato, as well as to medals and imprese. From 1540 to 1545, when Bronzino was painting Eleonora's chapel, the duke commissioned works of art of diverse types, many of which have Medicean significato. Bronzino painted a number of state portraits of Cosimo and Eleonora (see Plates 1-2; Figs. 22-23). Bandinelli and Cellini made competing portrait busts of him in 1544 and 1545, respectively,18 and Bandinelli also portrayed Giovanni delle Bande Nere (see Fig. 4). T h e content of these portraits was related primarily to imagery of Medici rule,19 as were the numerous medals by Domenico di Polo that carry didactic messages about Cosimo and his rule.20 In the realm of monumental art, the efforts of Cosimo's advisers and artists were focused on several major commissions that had political significance: the decoration of the Villa Castello loggia and gardens, initiated in 1537 under the direction of Pontormo and Tribolo, respectively (see Fig. 3);21 the wedding apparato of 1539, organized by Tribolo and Aristotile da Sangallo; the decoration of public rooms of the Palazzo, begun in 1540 under the direction of Tasso: the Sala Grande with its new udienza by Bandinelli, the Sala delle Udienze with frescoes of Camillus by Salviati (see Fig. 2), and the Sala de' Dugento, with its Story of Joseph tapestries by Bronzino, Pontormo, and Salviati (see Fig. 5); and in 1541 the apparato for the baptism of Francesco de' Medici, mounted by Tribolo, Tasso, and Vasari. By the mid-i540s, with the first campaign completed in the transformation of the Palazzo into a residence decorated with appropriately Medicean and ducal imagery, Cosimo shifted his focus to the Piazza della Signoria, with the commission of Cellini's Perseus (see Fig. 7), and to the churches, with the commission to Pontormo to paint the choir of S. Lorenzo with Old Testament frescoes—which are not innocent of political content (see Fig. 6). These works marked the end of the early phase of Cosimo's patronage and his use of art to enhance his image.

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The artists employed on these projects were charged with creating visual images to reinforce the political propaganda of the nascent principato. They emphasized certain themes of Cosimo's rule, some of which were later dropped as irrelevant or as having served their purpose; conversely, some ideas prominent in Cosimo's later art had not yet been developed—or were not publicly advanced— in the 1540s. Thus, for example, Cosimo's early art is characterized by an aggressive stance regarding his right to rule and the inevitability of his principato, but there was a shrewd holding back or veiling of certain forms of personal glorification—apotheosis, identification with gods such as Apollo and Jupiter, even the full development of the Cosimo-Augustus parallel—that appear later but around 1540 might have been considered overly suggestive of royal pretensions. The themes that emerge repeatedly in the propaganda and art of Cosimo's first decade, all of which have their nexus in the person of the duke and his rule, are those of legitimacy, destiny, power, and promise. After the murder of Duke Alessandro in January 1537, it was imperative for the supporters of the regime to find an immediate replacement—not just to ensure the continuation of the principato but to ward off the real threat that Charles V would return Florence to his direct protection.22 The claim for Cosimo's legitimacy rested only on the absence of Medici heirs in the main line of the family (save Alessandro's murderer Lorenzino), but Cosimo had several points in his favor: he united the two branches of the family (see Fig. 17); his father Giovanni delle Bande Nere was remembered as a popular military hero, especially renowned for exploits against the French (the emperor's traditional enemy); and— at age seventeen—he had not previously been involved in Florentine politics.23 Thus, on 9 January, the Florentine Senate elected Cosimo "capo, e Primario del governo e della citta di Firenze" (leader and head of the government and of the city of Florence)—but not duke24 That negative decision, a compromise designed to preserve some degree of autonomy for Florence, was made in the belief that the young capo could be manipulated or even replaced. However, Cosimo proved himself adroit and politically precocious, and, in a series of shrewd maneuvers, primary among them the victory of 1 August 1537 over the Florentine fuorusciti (exiles) at Montemurlo, he succeeded in being recognized by the Florentines as the legitimate successor to Alessandro. On 30 September 1537 he obtained from the emperor the official privilegio to use the title Duca di Firenze 25 Even with his title ratified, Cosimo had to reinforce his legitimacy continuously against challenges from both imperial and republican quarters: the supporters of

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AND 2

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PROPAGANDA

Charles V, w h o had military backing; the Ottimati, Florentine aristocrats w h o favored a principato,

but one under their control; the exiles, whose governo

libero

(or republican government) w o u l d include an alliance w i t h the F r e n c h , and the piagnoni,

the followers o f Savonarola w h o preached that the n e w regime w o u l d

fall by the will o f God. 26 Cosimo's legitimacy was proclaimed at every turn in his early art. It was particularly expressed in the theme of the duke and his antenati that appears in the w e d d i n g apparato, in Bandinelli's statues o f the udienza in the Sala G r a n d e , in the sculpture planned by Tribolo for the gardens of Villa Castello, and in other w o r k s I will cite in the f o l l o w i n g chapters. 27 Bolstering Cosimo's claim to be the legitimate ruler of Florence was a carefully developed and nurtured m y t h of his d e s t i n y — o f the inevitability o f his rule, its predestination by fate, divine providence, and the stars.28 In Cosimo's art, as in M e d i c e a n art before him, one way o f expressing these ideas was the topos o f M e dici return. W i t h the restoration of the family in 1512, images, mottoes, and conceits had been invented by the advisers o f L e o X to propagandize the return to p o w e r o f the Medici. Such imagery centered on several old and interrelated Renaissance images o f renewal that were associated mainly w i t h the perceived G o l d e n A g e o f Leo's father, L o r e n z o il Magnifico: time's return and the n e w G o l d e n A g e o f the Medici, vegetative regrowth (in this case, o f the Medici laurel), and rebirth. 29 In Cosimo's art L e o n i n e imagery was revived in full force, its message adjusted to the political circumstances of the late 1530s.30 T h e upheavals o f the previous decade and the alliance of Florence with Charles V had put the G o l d e n A g e o f L o r e n z o forever out o f reach, and there was little nostalgia for the past in Cosimo's celebration of the Medici house. N o r was his imagery o f return accompanied by any of the undercurrents o f transience and precariousness that gave the earlier images such poignancy: for this return was understood to be permanent. In w o r k s such as the Story of Joseph tapestries (see C h a p t e r 11) and Salviati's C a m i l l u s frescoes, the theme o f return was presented as a function of the d u k e himself, linked closely w i t h his claim to be the legitimate successor to A l e s s a n d r o and w i t h his promises for a n e w G o l d e n A g e o f Medici rule. In The Triumph of Camillus

the Medici topos o f return was updated to suit the n e w ide-

ology o f Cosimo's regime, as the triumphal adventus of the d u k e himself is paralleled w i t h that of C a m i l l u s , crowned with laurel by F a m e , m a k i n g a lavishly appointed entry into R o m e after his victory at Veii (Fig. 161).31

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FIGURE

161.

Francesco Salviati, The Triumph of Camillus. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala delle Udienze.

T h e duke's historians also subscribed to this cyclical view of history and to the predestined Medici return. T h u s Varchi in his Storia fiorentina,

commissioned by

Cosimo at the close of the first decade of his rule, began with a succinct statement of the ducal view of Medici history: Tre volte fu cacciata da Firenze la casa de' M e d i c i , . . . e tutte e tre le volte, come avevano i cieli destinato, vi ritornò sempre maggiore e più potente che partita non se n'era.32 (Three times the house of the Medici was evicted from Florence, . . . and all three times, as the heavens had predestined, it returned—always greater and more powerful than if it had never left.)

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By the time these lines were written, the mythology of Cosimo's regime had been effectively formulated: Cosimo was not only the legitimate successor to former Medici rulers but also the inevitable one. Claims of legitimacy and inevitability, to have real meaning, had to be buttressed by personal power; in proclaiming his predestined right to rule Florence, Cosimo also asserted that he could defend that claim against internal and external enemies, that resistance to his absolute authority was futile. Claims for legitimacy involved the manipulation of historical facts, and the notion of inevitability was pure myth, but Cosimo's power was real, and his achievement of absolute control was in fact the main accomplishment of his early years. In internal affairs the duke demonstrated his strength immediately and with unexpected forcefulness by expelling the dissenting cardinals in late January 1537, defeating the fuorusciti

at

Montemurlo in August, and executing or detaining the political prisoners taken there. H e then set about establishing the machinery of an absolutist state. In external affairs Cosimo allied himself with Charles V while simultaneously seeking Florentine autonomy. By accepting the imperial privilegio he in effect pledged fealty to Charles, and he played the role of loyal feudal vassal for the first five years of his rule.33 Yet at the same time he successfully bargained with Charles to accept 150,000 scudi (provided by Eleonora) for the return of the fortresses of Florence and Livorno (which had been occupied by Spanish troops), thereby achieving in 1543 his goal of Florentine autonomy.34 Cosimo's equivocal situation in his early years as duke required a delicate balance in the presentation of images of ducal power, or, as Kurt Forster termed them, "metaphors of rule." 35 In works of art commissioned before 1543 there is a tension between the openly stated idea of subservient alliance with Charles (as in the wedding apparato) and the notion of the duke's own power, expressed only obliquely (as in allegories of his victory of Montemurlo; see Chapter 12). Indeed, only after the return of the fortresses were Cosimo's absolutist programme and royal ambitions given visual form. It was then that a mode all'antica began to dominate his art; authoritative sculptural models of antiquity were used, by such artists as Salviati in The Triumph of Camillus (see Fig. 161) and Bandinelli in his marble bust of Cosimo, to suggest the duke's power.36 In this connection, too, C o simo identified with Augustus and with such powerful legendary heroes as Hercules.37 Finally, Cellini's Perseus, with its thinly veiled warning against dissenters (see Fig. 7), brought Cosimo's imagery of power into public view in the Piazza della Signoria.

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If the themes of Cosimo's legitimacy and destiny drew on tradition and that of his power asserted the reality of the present, the theme of his promise was concerned with the f u t u r e — t h e benefits that he offered Florentines in return for their support of his rule. This theme relates to those already discussed, and, since it projects them all into the future, it is their summation. T h e general notion of the pubblico bene (public welfare) subsumes two major benefits Cosimo promised to the people of Florence: the founding of a new Medici dynasty that would bring stability to the historically unsettled city and the achievement of prosperity and p e a c e — e v e n a new Medici Golden A g e — i n Florence. T h e dynastic theme was expressed in the wedding apparato and in Bronzino's portrait of Eleonora with Giovanni (see Fig. 23). Tribolo's ambitious garden design for Villa Castello, had it been completed, would have projected the Golden A g e idea most explicitly; moreover, in his Augustan mode (particularly in the wedding apparato) Cosimo was closely identified with the revival of the Augustan Golden A g e and the Pax Augustae. T h e duke as peacemaker and healer of discord was a ubiquitous theme that drew on the conceit Cosimo medico (alluding to the wordplay on the name Medici [ = doctors]). T h e theme appears in works of art such as Salviati's Peace Burning Arms over the doorway in the Sala delle Udienze (see Fig. 2) and perhaps even in Bronzino's image of the duke as Orpheus with his lyre (see Fig. 19). T h e primary level of meaning of Bronzino's paintings in the Chapel of Eleonora is rooted in their function as devotional and narrative pictures in a sacred context, but all the themes of Cosimo's early art that I have sketched here are present in the decoration. T h e ideas that are expressed in the chapel are at once monumental and elaborate—large scale and conceit l a d e n — i n the taste of the same courtly Maniera aesthetic that determined their style. T h e conceits that express the themes of Cosimo's legitimacy, destiny, power, and promise in his secular art were modified or adapted to the devotional subjects of the decoration to glorify him, his marriage to Eleonora, and the new Medici dynasty.

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CHAPTER T E N

I M A G E R Y OF D Y N A S T Y A N D

RULE

T h e Chapel of Eleonora differs in two major respects from the other decorations that Duke Cosimo commissioned in the early 1540s. It is a religious work, in which topical and secular themes must necessarily function only as a subtext; thus Eleonora's chapel is not, and could not be, a propagandistic work like Cosimo's commissions for the decoration of the great reception rooms of the palace. Moreover, the chapel is not a public space but a private one. Its decoration might even be seen as akin to that of an exquisitely illuminated manuscript intended for a limited audience. T h e chapel would be used and enjoyed by its owners and their entourage and, perhaps, shown only to those cognoscenti who could appreciate the beauty of Bronzino's paintings and the way in which their religious imagery also celebrated Cosimo's rule, the ducal marriage, and the new Medici dynasty. A contemporary level of meaning in Bronzino's chapel paintings is clearly established in the Medici portraits that can be identified in the altarpiece. It is also delivered in the Medici-Toledo stemma, in the Cardinal Virtues of Duke Cosimo, and in the fruitful garlands and putti, which allude to the new Medici dynasty he established with Eleonora. The Altarpiece Bronzino's original altarpiece (see Plate 1 1 and Fig. 91), the climax of devotional imagery of the Chapel of Eleonora, conveys a secondary, Medicean, level of meaning in its identification of earthly and heavenly hierarchies. T h e

260

Lamenta-

tion and its wings contain portraits of Medici family members as saints—part of a tradition in Medici art that took shape in the mid-fifteenth century and continued beyond Bronzino's time into the late cinquecento. In the quattrocento, a number of Medici posed in the guise of their patron saints Cosmas and Damian. For example, in Fra Angelico's Madonna and Saints, the high altar painted in 1438-40 for S. Marco, the work's patron, Cosimo il Vecchio, is portrayed as his name saint, Cosmas, the intercessor at the left (Fig. 162).1 The Medici also had themselves portrayed as the Magi, an association that became part of the family's iconography.2 T h e most prominent example is Gozzoli's Procession of the Magi in the Palazzo Medici chapel (see Fig. 13), whose decoration was an important prototype for that of the Chapel of Eleonora. There, Lorenzo, the Medici heir, is probably idealized as the young Magus, and portraits of his father, Piero, and his grandfather Cosimo il Vecchio, among others, are included. In a Madonna and Saints of 1575 from the workshop of Bronzino (attributed to Francesco Maria Butteri; Fig. 163), this conceit is carried to an extreme.3 The work includes Florence's protectors, St. John the Baptist and St. Anne; in addition, there are five saints, all portraits. Cosimo is posthumously portrayed as St. Cosmas (at left, holding his attribute, the medicine jar); his son Cardinal Ferdinando is St. Damian; below them, Cosimo's daughter Isabella is St. Catherine. To the right of the Virgin is Grand Duke Francesco as St. George and Isabella's husband, Paolo Orsini, as St. Flaviano. Bronzino's incorporation of family portraits in the altarpiece of Eleonora's chapel goes beyond the quattrocento prototypes but does not match the audacity of the later cinquecento picture. Here Bronzino portrays Medici family members as the Virgin Mary, a holy woman, St. John the Baptist, and St. Cosmas. The most obvious portrait is the unmistakable likeness of Maria Salviati as the Virgin Mary—whose name she bore. Bronzino's likeness of the duke's mother may be compared with Pontormo's portrait of her with the young Cosimo, painted about 1527 (Fig. 164).4 Particularly striking in both portraits are Maria's prominent eyes, an inherited facial feature (passed on to Cosimo) that is even mentioned in the description of her in Settimanni's diary: [Maria] fu alta di statura, bianca di volto, occhi grossetti, come quella che ritraeva a Papa Leone X°, essendo nata di Madonna Lucrezia de' Medici sua sorella.5 (Maria was tall, fair, [with] large eyes like those of Pope Leo X because she was the daughter of the Lady Lucrezia de' Medici, his sister.)

261

FIGURE 162

(above). F r a Angelico,

Madonna

and Saints. S. Marco.

FIGURE 163.

(Attributed to) Francesco Maria Butteri, Madonna and Saints. Uffizi.

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FIGURE 164.

Jacopo da Pontormo, Maria Salviati and Cosimo de' Medici. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery.

An anomaly in Bronzino's depiction of the Virgin points to this identification: she is dressed in a nun's habit. The Virgin as nun was a commonplace in altarpieces painted for convents, such as Bronzino's own Dead Christ with the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene from S. Trinita, where Mary wears the brown habit of the Vallombrosians (see Fig. 93), or Perugino's Lamentation for S. Chiara, where she is portrayed as a nun of the Clarissae (see Fig. 94). Although there is no apparent reason for the Virgin in the chapel painting to be so garbed, we find one in Maria Salviati's personal history: after 1526, during her widowhood, Maria became a tertiary of the Dominican order, and she wore a black-and-white nun's habit, in which she was buried.6 She is depicted in this dress in Pontormo's portrait (and in all later ones of her). In the altarpiece Bronzino departed from the reality of Maria's black clothes and gave Mary an idealized blue habit (the traditional color of her robes) with a white coif—a fictive nun's garb that alludes to, without literally representing, Maria's customary dress. This portrait may also have had a

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FIGURE 1 6 5 .

G i u l i o C l o v i o , Eleonora

dì Toledo

(miniature). W a l b e c k A b b e y , D u k e o f

Portland Collection.

c o m m e m o r a t i v e function, for Maria died on 12 D e c e m b e r 1543, only a f e w m o n t h s after the Lamentation

was begun.

T h e holy w o m a n in green in the Lamentation,

probably Maria Cleophas, 7 is an

idealized likeness o f the chapel's patron, Eleonora herself. 8 T h i s w o m a n is p r o m inently isolated at the exact center o f the picture, her dress and coiffure c o m e closer to contemporary costume than those of any of the other w o m e n in the painting, and she is the only one (besides the Magdalene, w h o is always bareheaded) w h o s e head is not covered. H e r face may be compared w i t h Bronzino's contemporaneous portrait o f the duchess (see Plate 2). E v e n though her head is tipped f o r w a r d and d o w n at an angle that defies the comparison, Maria Cleophas has the same full face, l o n g nose, and prominent chin as the y o u n g Eleonora in this portrait. A l s o useful for comparison is G i u l i o Clovio's miniature o f Eleonora, datable to 1 5 5 1 - 5 3 (Fig. 165).9 Clovio's w o r k is m u c h less idealized than B r o n z i no's portraits o f the duchess, showing, for example, her square jaw and the cleft in her chin, and it also gives a point of reference for the color o f E l e o n o r a s hair,

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FIGURE 166.

Francesco da Sangallo, medal of Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Bargello.

which was described as blond when her coffin was opened in 1857.10 Bronzino in his portraits depicts Eleonora's hair as somewhat darker (although never brunet); in Bandinelli's representation of her as a donor figure in his Lamentation drawing of about 1540 (see Fig. 100), however, she is decidedly fair. In his preparatory study for the head of Maria Cleophas (see Fig. 124) Bronzino depicted her hair close to her head, as Eleonora's actually was. Only after he had already begun painting the altarpiece did he add the holy woman's full blond coiffure (see Chapter 5). St. John the Baptist and St. Cosmas, the original altar wings, were designated as portraits in an inventory of the Palazzo guardaroba of 1574 (doc. 28). Other evidence suggests that they were indeed portraits—of the duke himself and his father. St. John seems to be an idealized likeness of Giovanni delle Bande Nere (see Plate 10). The saint's profile may be compared to that of the medal of Giovanni by Francesco da Sangallo, which has the same narrowed, squinting eye and the ridge above the eyes (Fig. 166).11 It may also be compared to the various portraits

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based on Giulio Romano's death mask of Giovanni, in all of which we see an aquiline nose, strong chin, and mustache similar to St. John's. T h e first of these portraits is exactly contemporary with Bronzino's altarpiece, suggesting a revival of interest in the duke's father at this time. It had been commissioned f r o m Titian in 1545 by Pietro Aretino (who had been Giovanni's secretary), but the commission passed to G i a n Paolo Pace, and the portrait (with the death mask, both in the Galleria degli Uffizi) was eventually presented to Cosimo in 1546. 12 Carlo Portelli later painted a portrait of Giovanni derived from this one (Fig. 167), 13 in which he changed Pace's half-length profile to the left into a three-quarter-length Giovanni in armor seated in profile right, obviously modeled on Vasari's state portrait of Alessandro de' Medici of 1534 (Galleria degli Uffizi). 14 T h e red drapery of Bronzino's saint is unusual and may allude to Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Although John the Baptist was a martyr saint, he is rarely dressed in the traditional red of martyrdom, and it is tempting to read his red robes here as indicative rather of the " m a r t y r d o m " in battle of Cosimo's father in 1526. Portelli used red with this meaning for Giovanni's drapery, and Vasari had used it in his portrait of Alessandro, in a gloss of which he associated it with the blood shed by the Medici. 15 T h e symbolism would have been even more appropriate for Giovanni delle Bande Nere, a hero w h o actually died in battle. Cosimo's father had played an important part in the duke's claims to legitimacy. L a c k i n g any heroic exploits of his own, the duke found it expedient in these works to emphasize his descent from the famous condottiere—perhaps hoping to project, by association, a heroic image for himself. Giovanni is featured prominently in the wedding apparato, with a series of paintings on the Porta al Prato celebrating his military valor, 16 and Tribolo's colossal equestrian monument of him, with paintings on its base by Bronzino, dominated the Piazza S. Marco. 17 Tribolo's statue may have suggested the idea for the permanent memorial to C o simo's father by Bandinelli (see Fig. 4),18 which reads as a "stand-in" for the duke, w h o was politic enough not to dedicate a public monument to himself at this time. G i v e n Cosimo's careful attention to enhancing his father's image in the early 1540s, it is hardly surprising to find Giovanni memorialized in Eleonora's chapel in the guise of his name saint (St. John). Until the lost St. Cosmas resurfaces, it seems reasonable to suggest that the Medici patron saint w h o had often been portrayed with the features of a Medici was a likeness of Cosimo, who, after all, bore his name. In 1558, the duke had himself portrayed as St. Cosmas by Vasari in the altarpiece of his private chapel

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FIGURE

167.

Carlo Portelli, Giovanni delle Bande Nere. Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

in the Palazzo (see Fig. i6).19 The wings are Vasari's portraits Du\e Cosimo de' Medici as St. Cosmas and Cosimo il Vecchio as St. Damiani

As was Vasari's custom,

the likenesses were based on existing portraits. That of Cosimo il Vecchio is a lengthened version of Pontormo's portrait of the pater patriae of 1519 (Galleria degli Uffizi), and the likeness of Duke Cosimo was taken from Bronzino's recent state portrait, painted in 1556.21 That Vasari derived his Duke Cosimo literally from Bronzino's portrait is all the more obvious because his duke looks (inappropriately) away from the altar, but in the same direction as in Bronzino's picture. Bronzino's likeness of the duke in Eleonora's altarpiece may have been based on his own recent state portrait of Cosimo (see Plate 1), already the official ducal image and one that he repeated elsewhere in 1545, as in the three-quarter-length

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version that C o s i m o sent to G i o v i o (see Fig. 22). T h e likely pose o f the figure in the lost altar panel, w i t h St. C o s m a s - C o s i m o l o o k i n g to the left toward the

Lam-

entation, his right a r m placed across his body (probably holding his attribute o f a medicine jar), could readily have been adapted f r o m this portrait. T h e portrait of C o s i m o in his o w n chapel also suggests a parallel b e t w e e n the d u k e — a n e w C o s i m o — a n d his ancestor, the pater patriae. T h e s e portraits are a p r i m e example o f a conceit I have called the t w o Cosimos. 22 It was part o f the duke's s o m e w h a t specious claim o f legitimate descent f r o m C o s i m o il Vecchio, a lineage that w o u l d m a k e h i m a n e w pater patriae and a second founder o f the state. T h e notion o f the n e w C o s i m o appeared early in his rule in poems dedicated to h i m , such as one by Martelli on the occasion o f his marriage. It opens:

Le Suntuose Nozze il Sacro Honore La Reggia Pompa I'ornamento altero Del Nuovo Cosmo italico splendor Col piii Gradito Sangue del Hybero Vengo a cantar con vive voce furore^

(Of the magnificent nuptials, the devout honor, The royal pomp and dignified ornament Of the new Cosimo, Italic splendor Joined with most welcome Iberian blood, Come I to sing aloud, with passion.)

T h e d u k e had connected himself w i t h C o s i m o il Vecchio by adopting in 1537 an old Medici impresa w i t h a regenerating laurel (the broncone) that was associated w i t h the first Cosimo. 2 4 T h e conceit o f the t w o Cosimos also appeared in the imagery o f his w e d d i n g apparatoK and in a n e w personal impresa (two anchors w i t h the motto

DVABVS)

that succinctly expressed the idea o f the n e w duke's r e f o u n d i n g

o f the state in the image o f the first Cosimo. 26 A portrait o f the d u k e as the patron saint he shared w i t h his ancestor in Eleonora's chapel w o u l d also have exemplified the conceit o f the t w o Cosimos. T h e pairing o f C o s i m o as St. C o s m a s and G i o v a n n i delle Bande N e r e as St. John in the chapel altarpiece has another topical m e a n i n g related to Medicean dynastic continuity. For these "portraits-as-saints" w o u l d have been seen to allude

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not only to a particular Cosimo and Giovanni but to Cosimo and Giovanni as favorite given names in the family (see Fig. 17). Moreover, it may be important that the name Giovanni alluded to Cosimo's immediate dynastic concerns. In October 1543 he named his second son Giovanni, after his father,27 following a Florentine tradition of symbolically "remaking" a dead ancestor.28 Furthermore, in selecting this particular name, he imitated both Cosimo il Vecchio, who had named his second son Giovanni, and Lorenzo il Magnifico, whose second son— also named Giovanni—became Pope Leo X (and was Cosimo's own godfather).29 The allusion in the chapel altarpiece to a seemingly predestined cycle of Medici fathers and sons bearing the names Cosimo and Giovanni thus indicates that the theme of prophecy and fulfillment is not limited to the chapel's devotional imagery but is fundamental to its political message as well.30 The linking of the Medici saint with the patron saint of Florence in the altar was also a succinct statement of Cosimo's rulership. The same combination was to be a feature of his own chapel (see Fig. 16), which was dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damian and consecrated on the feast of S. Giovanni. Its altarpiece (in which St. John occupies a prominent position), with wings of Cosmas and Damian, was taken as the starting point for the decoration of the chapel, which includes scenes from the lives of the Medici saints on the vault (see Fig. 50) and scenes from the life of the Baptist on the walls. More important for the genesis of the conceit, as used in Eleonora's chapel, however, was the presence of this precise imagery elsewhere in Cosimo's early art. Shortly after he became duke, Cosimo replaced the traditional Florentine lily on the florin with his own image (keeping St. John on the reverse).31 About 1540 he made a more complex statement, conflating communal and Medicean imagery in a coin that paired St. John with St. Cosmas (Fig. 168).32 The inscription B[ATISTA]

P[ROTECTORE]

E[T]

COS[MA]

CONS[ERVATORE]/DIVIS

IOA[NNE]

proclaims that

Cosmas-Cosimo is St. John's counterpart as the preserver of the city of Florence. In 1543 the duke issued a silver coin pairing his image with that of St. John to commemorate the return of the Florentine fortresses, the most important of which was the fortress of S. Giovanni (now the Fortezza da Basso).33 Another example of the linking of St. Cosmas-Cosimo and St. John the Baptist in Cosimo's early art presents an exact parallel with the chapel altarpiece. In the mid-i540S (we cannot date the work more precisely), as one of a series of similar frescoes inside several of the Florence city gates, Michele di Ridolfo Ghirlandaio painted a lunette in the Porta S. Gallo.34 It depicts the Madonna flanked by St.

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FIGURE

168.

Coin of SS. John the Baptist and Cosmas. Bargello.

John the Baptist and St. Cosmas; Cosmas, the intercessor to the right who gestures toward the Virgin while looking out at the spectator, is a portrait of Cosimo. The novelties in Michele's image lie in the pairing of the patron of Florence and her duke, and in the fusion of St. Cosmas and Cosimo into a single image so that the duke actually becomes the saint. This public painting delivers a political message: on becoming duke, Cosimo assumed not only the leadership of the Medici family and of Florence but also a position equal to that of the city's patron saint. In the chapel's altar wings this same highly symbolic pairing has a greater depth of spiritual meaning: as St. John bears witness to the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of Florence, St. Cosmas does so on behalf of the family for whose devotions the chapel served. If we imagine now the original installation of the altar wall (see Fig. 91), completed by Bronzino's portrait of Duke Cosimo as St. Cosmas on the right, we can better appreciate both how Cosimo dominated the decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora and how immediately apparent the focus on him would have been.

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The frescoes above the altar wings, King David and The Erythraean Sibyl (see Plate 12), are not portraits but may also play a role in the political subtext of the altar wall. David, the hero of the Florentine republic, was himself a Florentine "patron saint." The youthful giant-killer was not permitted to appear in Cosimo's art until all threat to his rule had passed; David the king, however, placed next to the spandrel of Justice with its accompanying emblems of rulership (see Plate 13), may have been intended as a subtle reference to Cosimo's royal ambitions. And David, "whose house and dominion were to stand forever" (2 Kings 7:16), would also have carried a strong dynastic message, underscoring this important theme in the chapel.35 Among the sibyls, Erythraea in particular was associated with Florence. A Florentine tradition held that her prophecy of white lilies foretold the rise of Florence, city of the lily, a legend that may account for her presence among the trecento sculptures including the Tiburtine Sibyl, King David, and King Solomon on the Campanile of the Duomo.36 With the original altar wing in place, Erythraea would have pointed down at St. Cosmas-Cosimo. The juxtaposition and the gesture might have encouraged the observer to read not only Christ but Cosimo as the fulfillment of her prophecy, as the embodiment of a Medicean "resurrection," or renewal. The relationships between biblical and contemporary characters and prophecies on the altar wall thus suggest a twofold typological scheme in the chapel's imagery: the fulfillment in the New Testament of the prophecies of the Old and, similarly, the predestination of Medici history by God. Family members such as Duke Cosimo act out their fated roles—in relation to the state, rather than to the Church—and become secular counterparts of their sacred predecessors.

Cosimo's Virtues The theme of Duke Cosimo's virtù was a commonplace in his art (as in that of any other Renaissance ruler). In the familiar Renaissance conceit, virtù and fortuna—polar

(and often conflicting) forces of personal talent and will versus

fate—were seen to influence the course of human affairs. In Cosimo's art, virtù and fortuna are presented as God-given and as existing in perfect harmony.37 The theme was crystallized in the motto that Giovio invented in 1540 to accompany the duke's device of Capricorn, symbol of his astrological destiny. The words F I D E M FATI VIRTVTE SEQVEMVR

(We shall follow with virtue faith in our destiny)

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expressed Cosimo's faith that his own abilities would complement the exalted destiny to be read in his horoscope.38 The message of the impresa—that Cosimo's virtu was conjoined with his fortuna—was

given artistic form early in his rule in

the decoration of Villa Castello, where the loggia (with the duke's horoscope painted by Pontormo) and the gardens (with Tribolo's sculpture alluding to Cosimo's rule) asserted their harmonious coexistence.39 The Cardinal Virtues in a chapel decoration often signal a funerary context. They had long been a traditional feature of burial chapels, often appearing in the spandrels or in the four fields of the vault, where they attest to the virtuous life of the deceased.40 But there is no question of a funerary meaning in the Chapel of Eleonora; nor, given the conventions of Renaissance art, is it possible to imagine that they refer to Eleonora—a woman—at all. Here they must allude to Cosimo, declaring his virtu and glorifying him, not in death, but in life—in his wife's private chapel. The Virtues in the Chapel of Eleonora relate to a number of Florentine traditions. The Cardinal Virtues had played a role in the civic art of the city, where they decorated public monuments such as the Baptistery (Andrea Pisano's ceremonial doors), the Campanile, the Loggia dei Lanzi, and the Church of Or S. Michele. In the chapel, Cosimo incorporated this traditional republican imagery to serve his own image as legitimate ruler of the city, just as he had assimilated such civic heroes as St. John the Baptist and Hercules.41 The moral-religious significance that links the chapel's virtues with those on the city's monuments is heightened by Bronzino's imaginatively symbolizing the vices by masks tied or chained below them. This imagery descends from the medieval conceit of the triumph of virtue, in which the vices were portrayed in medallions at the feet of the virtues; an exact precedent for Bronzino's imagery is found in the virtues of the Loggia dei Lanzi, where, for example, at the feet of Prudence an upside-down mask-like head signifies vice (Fig. 169). Although Bronzino seems not to represent specific vices in the spandrels, at least one mask—the screaming face below the virtue Temperance—vividly evokes the opposing vice, anger (see Fig. 36). The virtues and vices may also relate to Florentine art contemporaneous with the chapel decoration, in which the mask had become detached from its original context to stand alone as a symbol of vice. For example, masks are emblems of fraud in Bronzino's Allegory of Venus, where they express the deceitful aspects of love (see Fig. n). 42 And masks were used in Medicean paintings about rulership, such as Vasari's portrait of Lorenzo il Magnifico of 1534 (in the collection of Ot-

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taviano de' Medici; now Galleria degli Ufiizi), where a "maschera bruttisima" (very ugly mask), as Vasari calls it, symbolizes the vice over which the ruler's virtue has triumphed. 43 Finally, and precisely relevant to the Chapel of Eleonora decoration, the Cardinal Virtues belonged to Renaissance literary tradition. Lucio Paolo Rosello's treatise on princes II Ritratto del vero governo del principe dall'esempio vivo del gran Cosimo de' Medici (1552) states that by observing the Cardinal Virtues, a prince could govern well; the treatise presents Duke Cosimo as the exemplar of these virtues.44 In the chapel we see this conventional idea expressed visually, as the virtue spandrels reinforce the notion that Duke Cosimo, the new exemplum virtutis, embodies the sum of the virtues. Personifications of Cosimo's specific virtues appear in diverse works of his first decade of rule, but the Chapel of Eleonora is the only work commissioned by the duke in which the Cardinal Virtues are represented alone. It is also the only religious work he commissioned in which they appear at all, thus underscoring the chapel's secular subtext. (For example, when Vasari came to decorate the vault of Cosimo's chapel in the late 1550s, he chose the Theological Virtues [more tradi-

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tional for a chapel], a d d i n g Justice, the virtue especially associated w i t h C o s i m o , in the fourth spandrel; see Fig. 50.) T h e most important o f the chapel's virtues are Justice (see Plate 13) and Fortitude (see F i g . 37). A b o v e the altarpiece, w i t h its portrait o f C o s i m o as St. Cosmas, they convey a clear political message about the duke's just and p o w e r f u l rule. T h e f u n d a m e n t a l ruler's theme of Justice was expressed early in C o s i m o ' s art in Tribolo's Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus at Villa Castello (see F i g . 3), w h i c h s y m b o l i z e d Cosimo's justice (and fortitude) in his victory at Montemurlo. 4 5 A r o u n d the fountain, sculptures o f virtues were projected; Vasari states that they were intended to show "la g r a n d e z z a e la bontà della casa de' Medici, e che tutte le virtù si truovono nel duca C o s i m o " (the greatness and goodness of the house o f Medici, and that all the virtues are f o u n d in D u k e Cosimo). 46 H e continues, noting that Justice was to be in the first niche near the fountain, w i t h "il ritratto di sua eccellenza, per essere quella sua peculiare" (the portrait o f D u k e C o s i m o , that [justice] being his particular [virtue]). Cosimo's justice was also a m a j o r theme in the decoration o f the P a l a z z o , the seat o f his g o v e r n m e n t , in the early 1540s. T h e Sala delle U d i e n z e had been a hall o f justice under the republic, and w h e n he took it over to serve in this same capacity, C o s i m o s h r e w d l y allowed Benedetto da Maiano's statue o f Justice to remain in place over the east d o o r w a y (see F i g . 2).47 In the Camillus cycle, Salviati reiterated the theme of divine justice as an allusion to C o s i m o in The Sacrifice of Isaac at the center o f the south wall, flanked by Faith, H o p e , Charity, and Fortitude, the virtues necessary to Cosimo's administration o f justice.48 A n o t h e r w o r k in the P a l a z z o that featured the theme is Bronzino's door h a n g i n g Justice Innocence

(see F i g .

103).49

Liberating

Justice, a heroic armored w o m a n w i t h a sword and

scales, frees Innocence (Florence) f r o m Envy, G r e e d , Fury, and Perfidy (the animals w h o menace her), w h i l e Father T i m e reveals Truth. T h i s w o r k tells the observer that the eternal truth o f Medici rule is revealed in the actions o f C o s i m o , her just principe?0 Justice, the most significant o f Cosimo's virtues, was the only medallion B r o n z i n o painted in the original c a m p a i g n of w o r k in the C h a p e l o f Eleonora (see Plate 13). It is colored a brilliant red (echoing the red robes o f St. John and, presumably, o f C o s m a s - C o s i m o in the altar w i n g s below). T h e design o f this spandrel is m o r e c o m p l e x than that of the others, w i t h a larger e m b l e m above the medallion, six attributes o f the virtue, and five multicolored masks o f vice. Justice's attributes are the only ones in the spandrels that explicitly signal C o s i m o ' s

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FIGURE I 70.

(After) Bronzino, Duke Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo. Erlanger Collection, Connecticut.

rulership. T h e sword and scales suggest the power and balance of divine justice, personified by the adjacent St. Michael, who carries them (see Plate 16). T h e orb and scepter symbolize a temporal ruler's p o w e r — a n d possibly Cosimo's ambitions for a royal title.51 T h e compass and square signify architecture and allude to the Medicean topos of the ruler as architect of the state.52 These same devices appear in a portrait dated 1546 (Fig. 170), an anonymous pastiche combining Bronzino's first portraits of Eleonora and Cosimo (see Plates 1-2)." Eleonora wears the same red gown, but Cosimo's armor has been changed to civilian dress, and he is characterized as the architect of Tuscany: a map of Pisa lies in front of him, he holds a compass in his hand, and a square rests beside the map. (This

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t h e m e was durable: C o s i m o carries the same emblems in important paintings by Vasari, such as Dul^e Cosimo de' Medici with His Architects, Engineers, and tors-, see F i g .

Sculp-

8.)54

T h e other three virtue medallions are less elaborate. Fortitude (see F i g . 37), w i t h her attribute o f a broken column, is framed by the paws of Hercules' lion. H e r c u l e s was the supreme exemplar o f the virtue; it is probable that lions were planned for the f r a m e , but B r o n z i n o left it empty w h e n he stopped w o r k on the frescoes in the mid-1540s, and it was never filled in. T h i s imagery is related to C o s i m o ' s penchant for H e r c u l e a n attributes to signal his fortitude, as in portraits o f 1 5 4 4 - 4 5 such as Cellini's bronze bust and Bandinelli's e n g r a v i n g o f the d u k e as Hercules. 5 5 Prudence and Temperance are relegated to the less prominent positions on the chapel's entrance wall, reflecting their minor importance in Cosimo's early imagery o f rule. 56 Prudence is depicted in the usual fashion w i t h a Janus-head, a mirror, and a snake, the latter t w o devices repeated in the spandrel's f r a m e (see F i g . 35). T e m p e r a n c e is shown pouring water f r o m a jug into a basin; ewers are also painted on either side o f her frame (see Fig. 36).

The Medici-Toledo

Stemma, the Garlands, and the Putti

T h e organization o f a vault into four compartments with garlands articulating the ribs and the family arms in a central medallion was traditional in Renaissance family chapels. Bronzino's handling of these elements is novel, however: the decorative imagery o f the vault of the C h a p e l o f E l e o n o r a — t h e

Medici-Toledo

stemma, the red porphyry "architecture," the fruitful garlands, and the p u t t i — was designed to celebrate Cosimo's union w i t h Eleonora and his promise o f a n e w Medici dynasty that w o u l d bring peace and prosperity to Florence (see Plate 5). U n d e r the Trinity the outlines of the stemma that B r o n z i n o painted at the center o f the vault can be m a d e out (see F i g . 46): to the left, the (red) Medici palle and, to the right, the (blue and silver) squares o f the Toledo arms; above is Cosimo's ducal coronet embraced by the imperial eagle of Charles V. T h e modello

for

the vault (see Plate 15) shows a simpler design without the eagle and the coronet; and, rather than the partizione semplice (vertical division) o f the arms as painted, it is inquartato

(divided in four), w i t h t w o sets o f palle and squares. 57 B r o n z i n o

then restudied the arms in black chalk on the verso o f his d r a w i n g for St. Michael (Fig. 171).58

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FIGURE 1 7 1 .

S t u d y f o r t h e M e d i c i - T o l e d o a r m s o f the v a u l t o f the C h a p e l of Eleonora. Louvre.

T h e ducal coronet and the imperial eagle added to the Medici-Toledo stemma emphasize the politics of uniting the two families under the beneficent patronage of Charles V. A s had been true of the art of Duke Alessandro (who was married to Charles's daughter), the theme of alliance with the emperor was omnipresent in the art of Cosimo's early years, signaled at every turn by elaborate MediciToledo stemme with the imperial eagle, such as one displayed over the portal of the Palazzo Medici for the wedding of the ducal couple.59 A n d the coat of arms received poetic elaboration in Gelli's song for Apollo in the entertainment, where the emperor was "l'Aquila altera" (the proud eagle) w h o made his nest in the Medici laurel, and the costume of Flora (Florence) featured an ingenious headdress made up of the palle and the eagle.60 T h e same stemma is found in other works of 1540-42, such as the Annunciation miniature in Eleonora's Book of Hours (see Fig. 24) and the vault of the Camera Verde (see Fig. 32), which is the only room in the Palazzo besides the chapel where the coat of arms includes the

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imperial eagle. A f t e r the emperor had granted C o s i m o limited autonomy by ret u r n i n g the Florentine fortresses to him in 1543, his e m b l e m was apparently no longer considered a necessary adjunct to the ducal

stemma61

T h e theme o f Cosimo's power as ruler is also evoked by the f r a m e around the central medallion and the ribs that extend f r o m it to the corners o f the vault. ( T h e f r a m e , seen in Bronzino's modello, was later obscured by a garland o f fruits and flowers.) T h e s e pseudo-architectural elements are painted to imitate porphyry, the valuable and durable red stone that in antiquity was the prerogative o f emperors, w h o used it as a symbol o f imperial authority. 62 Later rulers, including the Medici in their tombs in the O l d Sacristy at S. L o r e n z o , used the stone to convey a political message o f power; 6 3 and it also appears in Florentine art as an attribute o f f a m e , as in the painted porphyry wall revetments behind Castagno's uomini

illus-

tri f r o m Villa C a r d u c c i (now S. A p o l l o n i a , Museo Castagno). 64 In Cosimo's later art, p o r p h y r y was employed for family portraits, w h e r e it suggests an equation b e t w e e n the hard and noble substance and the eternal worth o f the subject, and in Francesco del Tadda's statue of Justice (alluding to the duke's military might) in P i a z z a S. Trinita. 65 In v i e w o f these traditions, it is reasonable to suppose that the " p o r p h y r y " in the chapel is more than a luxurious detail. T h e s e architectural elements, and possibly also the Justice m e d a l l i o n — a " p o r p h y r y " r e l i e f — a l l u d e to C o s i m o ' s rule and his royal or grand-ducal pretensions. T h e garlands suspended f r o m the medallion by gold rings and tied to the ribs w i t h blue ribbons are m a d e up of many different fruits and vegetables intert w i n e d w i t h laurel and vine leaves. Such garlands of plants that b l o o m and fruits that ripen in diverse seasons had symbolized the G o l d e n A g e since A u g u s t a n times. A n d the inclusion in them o f citrus (an allusion to the Medici palle) and laurel, s y m b o l i z i n g the family's renewal, makes it clear that the G o l d e n A g e evoked on the chapel vault is that of the Medici. 66 T h e use o f vegetative imagery to allude to Medicean regeneration was an old conceit in the family's art; the combination of Medici emblems, fruitful garlands, and putti had carried this message twenty years earlier in Pontormo's lunette Vertumnus and Pomona at P o g g i o a Caiano. 67 T h i s celebratory imagery was revived in C o s i m o ' s early art to signify the foundation o f a n e w Medici dynasty. It was featured in the w e d d i n g entertainment, where Gelli's song for A p o l l o details the fortunes o f the Medici lauro: C o s i m o and Eleonora are transformed into g r e e n plants that will bear

flowers—their

future offspring, w h o will conquer death. 68

T h i s conceit was also given visual f o r m in several of Cosimo's decorations o f the

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early 1540s: garlands, putti, and the family arms were prominent in the apparato for Francesco's baptism in 1 5 4 1 ; Salviati's Camillus frescoes are embellished by putti who sit on garlands holding the Medici-Toledo arms (see Fig. 2). His ceiling decoration in Eleonora's scrittoio features Abundance with putti (see Fig. 33); and the base of Cellini's Perseus (see Fig. 7) is adorned with garlands and fertility figures of Artemis. Bronzino crystallized all this iconography more didactically in his Allegory of the Dynasty of Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo (see Fig. 107).69 This tapestry depicts Apollo (Cosimo) and Minerva (Eleonora) tending a laurel, accompanied by a monumental Medici-Toledo stemma crowned with the ducal coronet;70 the inscription

FVNDATA

ENIM

E R A T SVPER P E T R A M

(For it has

been founded on a rock) alludes to the strength of the new dynasty. The decorative elements of the chapel vault represent an earlier, more imaginative, conflation of the conceits of this tapestry. The porphyry ribs convey the notion of strength and durability, and the garlands suggest that all the new branches and fruits of the Medici tree spring from the marriage of Cosimo and Eleonora, symbolized in the central stemma. This conceit of the ducal offspring as fruits was current in poetry dedicated to the Medici at just the time the chapel vault was being painted. In his "Sonetto sopra la nascita del duchino," celebrating Francesco's birth in 1541, Gelli calls Francesco the "novella prole" (new branch) of the Medici tree and asserts that from such a noble house "non mai mal frutto nasce" (bad fruit will never be born).71 Thus, the chapel's four putti, placed so intimately in relation to the Medici-Toledo stemma and the fruitful garlands, read as the fruits of the union of Cosimo and Eleonora—the children of the marriage. Bronzino has slyly made this clear by including among these celestial creatures one wingless putto—a mortal child (see Fig. 60). The choice of the fruits that lie between the legs of the putti on either side of St. Michael (see Plates 20-21) encourages an even more explicit reading of this imagery in relation to the ducal couple. The putto to the left stands over a ripe, open pomegranate and two pears. The pomegranate was a well-known symbol of the Resurrection—usually found, in Renaissance painting, in the hands of the Christ child as a prophetic sign—but it was also a secular symbol of marriage and fertility.72 Bronzino's delineation of the fruits is emphatically sexual: the putto on the right stands over a group of phallic vegetables, one of which is aligned with his genitalia.73 These fruits complement the pomegranate and two pears (as well as the two gourds under the wingless putto; see Fig. 60) in a way that leaves little

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doubt that both putti and fruits were intended to tell of richness, abundance, and fertility—the fecundity of Eleonora and Cosimo. Imagery with a sexual subtext is characteristic of Bronzino. He was the author of a large body of poetry that includes rime in burla—seemingly

banal poems in

the tradition of cinquecento burlesque poetry like that written by his friend Anton Francesco Grazzini (II Lasca)—that have an obscene or homoerotic meaning.74 These often take as a starting point vegetal imagery, which is elaborated in an erotic or pornographic metaphor, such as the onion in " L a cipolla di Bronzino pittore," a long paean dedicated to the poet's sexual prowess.75 And we should also recall that while Bronzino was at work in the Chapel of Eleonora, he was also painting the highly erotic Allegory of Venus, where a putto carrying the roses of Venus is similar in type to the putti of the chapel vault (see Fig. 11). The imagery of the fruits also brings to mind one of Bronzino's probable sources of the vault's design of a garlanded trellis framing sotto-in-sü

figures

against the sky: Raphael's Loggia di Psyche (see Fig. 51). There, in the spandrel with Mercury (Fig. 172), Giovanni da Udine painted suggestively sexual fruits (a gourd, ripe figs and eggplants, etc.) that Vasari described with relish.76 Philippe Morel has traced this representation to the very tradition of burlesque poetry that Bronzino and his circle wrote.77 Further, Morel read it as alluding to Mercury's announcement of the recent paternity of Agostino Chigi, patron of the loggia.78 Bronzino's putti and their fruits alluding to the fecund union of Cosimo and Eleonora are less blatantly sexual than those in the Loggia di Psyche, but the mere introduction of such details into a chapel decoration brings up the issue of decorum. Giovanni's priapic fruit was much admired as a concetto: according to Vasari, "il quale capriccio é espresso con tanta grazia, che piú non si puó alcuno imaginare" (that caprice is expressed with such grace that one could not imagine more). Unfortunately, we have no such contemporary comment on the reception of Bronzino's similar caprice; the erotically tinged Duke Cosimo de' Medici as Orpheus (see Fig. 19), however, painted only shortly before the chapel, suggests that the duke would not have objected to Bronzino's sexually charged fruits. The radiance emanating from the central Medici-Toledo stemma that bathes all the figures, garlands, and fruits in the heavenly zone of the chapel reads as both a supernatural light illuminating the ecstatic saints and a blatant assertion of Medicean dominance, as if from Heaven itself, that transforms the vault into an apotheosis of the Medici-Toledo marriage.79 The overpainting of the coat of arms

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FIGURE 1 7 2 .

Raphael and Giovanni da Udine, L o g g i a di Psyche, Villa Farnesina, detail, Mercury with fruitful garlands.

completely altered this focus; together with the replacement of the patron saints of Florence and the Medici by the Annunciation, it blunted the Medicean message in the chapel's decoration, shifting its emphasis from the glorification of Cosimo and Eleonora to a more conventional devotional iconography.

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C O S I M O DE' M E D I C I AS AN O L D T E S T A M E N T

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Allusions to Duke Cosimo's rule and the new Medici dynasty he founded with Eleonora di Toledo are evident not only in the paintings of the altar wall and the vault of the Chapel of Eleonora but also in the Story of Moses frescoes. Before examining these in detail, however, it is necessary to consider the extensive use of biblical imagery in Cosimo's early art and to discuss some other examples of the Old Testament cycles that he commissioned in the first decade of the principato. Old Testament imagery appears in panegyric and in art commissioned by Cosimo throughout his rule, from his wedding apparato to the orations delivered at his funeral. More than merely associating the duke with the heroes of the Old Testament, these works presented Cosimo as their reincarnation. The conceit of the hero reborn (implicit in the cinquecento's cyclical view of history) was a Renaissance cliché that sharpened the characterization of contemporary personalities. Old Testament figures were often evoked as exemplars: for example, Lorenzino de' Medici's murder of Duke Alessandro was seen by contemporaries as the act of a new David or a new Judith—both old Florentine models of the defense of republican virtue.1 Cosimo's advisers and artists saw to it that this conceit was constantly given new literary and artistic form, discreetly emphasizing his public image and his political ambitions by suggesting parallels with Old Testament figures.2

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As with all the imagery Cosimo employed to glorify himself, he identified with Old Testament heroes who suited his propagandistic focus at a given moment. In the 1560s he upgraded his status as he tried to become king of Tuscany by emphasizing that his rule was divinely ordained; subsequently, the conceit of Cosimo as an Old Testament king came into great vogue. He was characterized as a divinely appointed king in a series of tapestries designed in 1560-65 by Stradano for Cosimo's suite in the Palazzo. These symbolized the duke's virtù as exemplified by David, Solomon, Ciro, and others, and the three tapestries of the Story of David include David Anointed King by Samuel, alluding to Cosimo's elevation to the dukedom.3 In 1561 Fedeli, Cosimo's ambassador to Venice, compared the duke's election (which brought him to Florence from a rural life at Villa Trebbio) to God's call to David: Siccome David dal pascere le pecore per voler di Dio fu chiamato al Regno, così Cosimo uccellando e pescando fu chiamato al Principato.4 (Just as David, by God's wishes, was called to kingship from shepherding, so Cosimo was called to dukedom from birdhunting and fishing.)

The duke also appeared several times as King Solomon, model of royal wisdom, in Vasari's decorations of his bedroom in the Palazzo.5 And at the very end of his life Cosimo was identified with the prophet Joshua. This association was related to Cosimo's goal of territorial expansion in Tuscany, for it was Joshua who led the Israelites to the Promised Land and who was assured by God: "Every place that the sole of your foot shall touch, that have I given unto you" (Joshua 1:3). Just after Cosimo had received the title grand duke of Tuscany (27 August 1569), Vincenzo Danti portrayed him as a new Joshua in an exceptionally direct portrait likeness (Fig. 173). The sculpture is part of the important decoration of the Chapel of St. Luke (SS. Annunziata) executed for the Accademia del Disegno, of which Duke Cosimo was patron.6 The decoration symbolized the arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting. Placed next to Santi di Tito's painting Solomon Building the Temple (signifying architecture), Cosimo-Joshua was characterized as the architect of Tuscany.

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FIGURE I 73.

Vincenzo Danti, Du\e Cosimo de' Medici as Joshua. SS. Annunziata, Chapel of St. Luke.

Cosimo was also identified with Moses in his later sculpture. In Pierino da Vinci's Du\e Cosimo de' Medici as Patron of Pisa, a marble relief executed for Luca Martini in 1549 (Fig. 174),7 Cosimo is shown as liberator of Pisa, driving the vices from the city. As Holderbaum has shown, the relief is filled with portraits: among the supporters grouped behind the duke are the patron of the relief, the engineer Martini (the bearded man holding an astrolabe); Pierino himself (in full face at the left margin); and his master Tribolo (bearded, below Pierino).8 Standing directly behind Cosimo, as alter ego, is a horned Moses with the Tablets of the Law. Another of these sculptures is Vincenzo Danti's bronze relief The Brazen Serpent, the Moses story represented earlier in the Chapel of Eleonora (Fig. 175). The

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FIGURE

174.

Pierino da Vinci, Du\e Cosimo de' Medici as Patron of Pisa. Musei Vaticani.

FIGURE

175.

Vincenzo Danti, The Brazen Serpent. Bargello.

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relief's date (1559) and oblong proportions suggest that it might have been designed for Cosimo's private chapel (completed the previous year), perhaps as the central panel of an antependium for the altar.9 The conceit of the duke as an Old Testament hero was adumbrated in the first decade of his rule, when Old Testament imagery played an even more fundamental role than in the art of his later years. In this early phase of the principato when Cosimo's regime was still unstable and his critics vociferous, however, he was not yet identified with the biblical kings. Nor was he associated with the young David, who was still an anti-Medicean symbol, as can be seen in Giuliano Bugiardini's quotation of the head of Michelangelo's David to convey an anti-Medicean message in his portrait of Francesco Guicciardini of 1545 (New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery).10 In the years during which the duke consolidated his power, he was compared instead with the great founders—Noah, Joseph, and Moses. The dramatic stories of powerful yet benevolent patriarchs who founded or refounded their line or the state must have seemed tailor-made to convey the duke's power as founder of a new Medici dynasty and as refounder of the principato—particularly

in light of the paternalistic concept of the state that Cosimo

early established." Identification with these divinely ordained and assisted patriarchs, who fulfilled their destiny as liberators of their people despite trials and obstacles, could only enhance Cosimo's image of legitimacy and power. And his image as a healer of discord promising peace and prosperity echoed familiar Old Testament topoi. But perhaps most important, especially before 1543 (when the birth of his second son virtually assured the continuation of his line), Cosimo's promise of dynastic continuity and consequent political stability for Florence could be suggested by one of the most vivid leitmotifs of the Old Testament: the orderly transfer of power from father to son. In the Old Testament cycles of Cosimo's early art he is a new Noah, a new Joseph, and a new Moses—much as in secular contexts he was styled a new Hercules and a new Augustus. Moreover, the biblical Promised Land was understood as analogous to the traditional Golden Age; indeed, as the emphasis of Medicean propaganda in Cosimo's time shifted from nostalgia to promise, the Promised Land replaced the Golden Age of earlier Medici art as the favored metaphor of the pubblico bene. In these biblical cycles allusions to the Medici are more circumspect than in Cosimo's secular decorations. In the frescoes in the Chapel of Eleonora and in the

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tapestries in the Sala de' Dugento no Medici imprese or mottoes guide the viewer to the identification of Cosimo with Moses and Joseph. Nonetheless, there is plentiful evidence that their stories were intended to allude to him. T h e extensive use of biblical imagery in Cosimo's early art arose from an obsession with the Old Testament among members of his coterie, who developed the notion of the duke as an Old Testament hero. T h e conceit given visual form in the art of the 1540s was developed at the beginning of the decade by Gelli, Giambullari, and Bartoli, the academicians who were Cosimo's main cultural advisers. T h e Old Testament became a focus of intense study among these literati as they advocated the Tuscan language over Latin and revived the mito etrusco—the

myth of the

Etruscan origins of Florence, as opposed to the traditional legend of its Roman foundation. They declared that Tuscany had been founded by Noah, whom they identified with another mythical founder of Florence, Janus, and that the Tuscan tongue derived from Aramaic, or H e b r e w — t h e language of Redemption. 12 T h i s movement became entrenched in 1541 when this group, aided by Riccio (who maintained close ties with them on the duke's behalf), transformed the Accademia degli Umidi into the Accademia Fiorentina, which became to some extent an instrument of Cosimo's cultural policies. T h e ideas espoused by the group engendered intense polemics in the academy, ending in the victory of Cosimo's clique and its reformation in 1547 with Giambullari as consul.13 A b o u t the same time, these ideas were crystallized in a spate of publications on the subject. Indeed, in a recent study Paolo Simoncelli writes that the Aramaic-Etruscan movement swept like a comet over the Florentine cultural world.14 Gelli and Giambullari, both already in Cosimo's service as authors of the wedding apparato, were the most important proponents of the movement. Both men were scholars of the Old Testament. They were known as the Aramei, and G i a m bullari was ironically nicknamed "L'Arameo" by his enemy Grazzini. 15 Giambullari's defense of the Tuscan language and its Hebrew origins, in the form of a dialogue with Gelli, was published in Florence in 1546;16 in it the argument for the founding of Florence by Noah-Janus is put forth. Gelli played an even more important role in promulgating the idea that Noah had founded Florence. For example, his Eclogue (published in 1542 on the anniversary of Cosimo's election but probably written about 1539) is a dialogue between two shepherds w h o come to Florence to attend the investiture of the duke.17 One of them tells the story of Noah's foundation of Tuscany, concluding:

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Siam già vicini al tempio: entriamo ornai, entriamo a render grazie ai santi Iddei che diedero oggi il suo buon Cosmo a Flora, che non men che Noè l'antico padre ancor le renderà l'età de l'oro. (We are already near the temple: let us enter, let us enter to give thanks to the holy gods who today gave Flora [Florence] her good Cosimo, who no less than the ancient father Noah shall bring bac\ to her again the Golden Age.)

Already in this poem, in his academy lecture of 5 August 1541 on "la lingua d ' A d a m o " (the language of Adam) 1 8 and in his treatise Dell'origine di Firenze (dedicated to Cosimo in 1544),19 Gelli argues that Tuscany was the first place to be inhabited after the Deluge, that Noah-Janus brought the Aramaic language with him to Italy, and that his reign was a Golden A g e . Noah is presented as a model ruler—legislator, leader, bringer of peace, and provider for the pubblico

bene—

and the shepherds in Gelli's Eclogue speak of a new Noah, w h o will revive the Golden A g e in Florence, thus linking the Noah image to Cosimo. Gelli's poetry for Cosimo's wedding apparato, the duke's first official ideological and political statement, is replete with allusions to the mito etrusco and to the myth of Noah's founding of Florence. 20 Gelli developed the notion that N o a h Janus founded twelve cities in Tuscany, thus justifying Cosimo's planned territorial expansion. This idea was elaborated in speeches sung by Apollo in the wedding entertainment (which also included personifications of the cities that had come to pay homage to the new duke): L'antica Fiesole è, che edificata Fu da Iapeto del gran Noè figlio . . . D'Armenia Aretia con Noè suo sposo, Che dagli antichi Iano è nominato, Venne in Toscana . . ,2'

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(This is ancient Fiesole, who was built by Japheth, son of the great Noah . . . From Armenia Aretia with her husband Noah, called Janus by the ancients, came to Tuscany.)

N o a h also appeared prominently in the lavish decorations for the baptism of Francesco de' Medici in 1541, the next major public celebration of Cosimo's rule. Vasari's Deluge and Crossing of the Red Sea, portraying types of the sacrament of baptism, flanked his Baptism of Christ in the Tribune of the Baptistery (see Chapter 7). T h a t N o a h was included so prominently in the decorations suggests that one of the Aramei, probably Bartoli, w h o became preposto (provost) of S. Giovanni on 20 April 1540, was responsible for the programme. 22 Finally, N o a h dominated Pontormo's frescoes in the S. Lorenzo choir, a decoration that was almost entirely devoted to Old Testament scenes. Pontormo painted subjects from Genesis that were mystically linked in an unsystematic typological arrangement with subjects from the N e w Testament (see Fig. 6, an engraving that shows, in reverse, only the three scenes in the upper wall above the altar, The Temptation, Christ in Glory and the Creation of Eve, and The Expulsion). F r o m Vasari's and other contemporary descriptions, as well as Pontormo's preparatory drawings, the remaining frescoes can be identified.23 O n the upper left wall were Cain and Abel, Noah Designing the Ar\, Moses Receiving the Tablets of the Law (for Pontormo's study, see Fig. 87); on the upper right wall were The Four Evangelists (holding their Gospels and pendant to the Moses), The Sacrifice of Isaac, and The Labor of Adam and Eve\ on the lower left wall was The Deluge with the Benediction of the Seed of Noah. Vasari did not describe the N o a h scenes correctly: the episode of the Benediction of the Seed of Noah belongs to the aftermath of the Deluge and was painted with it on the lower wall, whereas the earlier episode of the Building of the A r k was depicted in the upper zone.24 Opposite The Deluge, the first great epic of salvation, was The Resurrection of the Dead. O n the altar wall, above The Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo and The Ascension of Souls, the central panel—Christ in Glory and the Creation of Eve—united

the beginning and

the end. T h e absence of an immediately comprehensible rationale for the unusual choice and combination of subjects in this cycle explains Vasari's sharp criticism of the frescoes. H e did not understand "the doctrine of the work," and he blamed

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the strangeness of the biblical interpretations on the "persone dotte e letterate" (learned and literary people) with whom Pontormo associated.25 Raffaello Borghini also criticized the frescoes, citing particularly the alleged errors in the N o a h subjects.26 Various suggestions have been made as to which "persone dotte e letterate" Vasari meant,27 but it seems likely that he was referring to the Aramei. A n important member of this group was Riccio (he had obtained the S. Lorenzo commission for Pontormo), w h o m Vasari described elsewhere as belonging to "una setta" (a clique), probably the Aramei. 28 T h e people Vasari had in mind might also have included Riccio's friends Giambullari and Gelli. Giambullari had his own associations with S. Lorenzo, being a canon of the church and serving as secretary to the canons when they made their deliberations; he also set his dialogue II Gello in the cortile of the church.29 It thus seems likely that these men of the Aramean group influenced, if they did not invent, the programme of the frescoes, with its unusual emphasis on N o a h — t h e i r special hero.30 Pontormo's frescoes seem to illustrate Gelli's elaboration on the myth of N o a h and the Etruscans in relation to the familiar themes of Cosimo's early art.31 The Deluge with the Benediction of the Seed of Noah was a metaphor of renewal: as the flood recedes, G o d blesses Noah's seed and commands Noah and his heirs to "be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly on the earth" (Genesis 9:7). T h e rarely represented theme of the benedictio multiplicationis could have been seen to allude to the Medici, styled as descending from the Tuscan founder N o a h and destined now to revive his Golden A g e through the dynasty founded by a new Noah. W h e n Pontormo's frescoes were painted, Medicean dynastic succession had been more than assured by the birth in 1549 of Eleonora's fourth son, Ferdinando. A t this time, her fertility came to be linked with the pubblico bene, a theme that had come increasingly to preoccupy the historians at Cosimo's court. L o o k i n g back over the first years of the principato, Nerli remarks: Dalla quale [Eleonora] dipoi Sua Eccellenza ne ha acquistata una bellissima e molto felice successione di figlioli come maschi, come femmine da poterne una perpetua felicita alio stato e alia casa sua.32 (From her [Eleonora] Cosimo has acquired a beautiful and fortuitous succession of sons and daughters, to make perpetual happiness possible for the state and for his house.)

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Nerli extends the theme of fertility to Cosimo himself, comparing him with "quel gran Patriarca A b r a h a m " (that grand patriarch Abraham), another founder of a new dynasty w h o had been promised fertility and progeny by G o d "per grazia speciale" and was told that his seed would multiply like the stars in heaven. As we know, the attachment of Cosimo's advisers to the Old Testament in the early 1540s led to commissions for biblical cycles based not just on the story of N o a h and the mito etrusco but on other Old Testament subjects as well.33 Besides the Story of Moses frescoes in the Chapel of Eleonora, the major cycle was the Story of Joseph, a subject that had been used with political reference before by the Medici (see Plate 33; Figs. 5, 69, 86, 105, 176).34 T h e most extensive surviving example of Old Testament imagery in Cosimo's art, this tapestry cycle depicted an O l d Testament hero as an exemplar of Cosimo more pointedly than Pontormo's allusive N o a h fresco. Destined for the politically important Sala de' Dugento in the Palazzo, the tapestries tell of Joseph, the second founder of his line, whose epic must have been seen to parallel the history of the d u k e — a second Medici founder (after Cosimo il Vecchio) under whom Florence would enter a new Golden Age. 35 T h e series of Joseph tapestries is the most elaborate treatment of the cherished Medici topos of return in all of Cosimo's art. T h e story of the unjustly exiled youth, honored first outside his own country and then reconciled with those w h o had cast him out and brought back to rule them, was an allegory of Cosimo's triumphal elevation to power. But the story is more than a historical narrative: it tells of a "call to rule," of the inevitable working out of divine providence. In equating his own history with it, Cosimo expanded the meaning of the topos of return: his advent was not only predestined but also divinely ordained. T h e Joseph cycle consists of two sets of ten tapestries. T h e first set highlights the theme of Joseph's predestined ascendancy, telling the narrative up to the coming of the brothers to Egypt. Four tapestries depict Joseph's dreams of his divinely ordained future: Bronzino's Joseph's Dream of the Sheaves of Wheat, Joseph's Dream of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and Joseph in Prison and the Pharaoh's Banquet (see Plate 33) and Salviati's Joseph Explaining the Pharaoh's Dream. T h e next four tapestries, which include The Selling of Joseph (see Fig. 105) and Joseph Fleeing Potiphar's Wife (see Fig. 69), tell of Joseph's trials in Egypt. T h e last-named is a key work in providing a visual basis for identifying Joseph with Cosimo. T h e scene was inspired by Raphael's fresco in the Vatican Logge, 36 but Bronzino

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turned Joseph's head in profile so that he closely resembles the beardless, curlyhaired C o s i m o as depicted on his early medals. 37 T h e portrait likeness here in the narrative (it occurs n o w h e r e else) points up that C o s i m o w h e n he assumed p o w e r was the same age (seventeen) as Joseph w h e n he was taken to E g y p t — t h a t is, w h e n the way was opened for his rise to power (Genesis 37:2). T h e second set o f tapestries develops the story o f Joseph's a s c e n d a n c y — a n d that o f C o s i m o , a n e w Joseph.38 F o u r scenes allude to Cosimo's promise o f future benefits to Florence, suggesting that C o s i m o , like the generous O l d Testament hero, w o u l d lead his people to fulfillment and prosperity. For example, in B r o n zino's Joseph's Feast and in Salviati's Joseph Selling Grain to His Brothers, JosephC o s i m o sits in imperial profile, dispensing plenty, his pose and the two-level c o m position recalling the relief o f Liberalitas on the A r c h of Constantine. T h e next f o u r tapestries are devoted to the themes of return and reconciliation favored by C o s i m o as metaphors of rule, and the last four suggest by analogy w i t h the story o f Joseph that there will be an orderly transfer o f Medici power. T h e s e tapestries expand on a m o n u m e n t a l scale a topos o f familial continuity in F l o r entine art. Paul Barolsky has pointed out that the Story o f Joseph panels painted by P o n t o r m o and others for the Borgherini bridal chamber in 1 5 1 5 - 1 8 depict episodes f r o m Joseph's story that were appropriate to the marital b e d r o o m ; they are about fathers and sons, about the continuity o f the family line.39 T h e s e same episodes f r o m the later part of the Joseph story are featured in the Sala de' D u gento tapestries in the context o f the continuation o f Cosimo's n e w Medici dynasty. The Meeting of Jacob and Joseph in Egypt shows the reunion o f father and son. O t h e r reconciliation scenes, including Benjamin

Received by Joseph (see F i g . 86),

resemble each other so closely as to seem redundant, but this repetition drives h o m e the message o f the benevolent ruler, alluding to C o s i m o and his forgiveness o f those w h o opposed his rule. Joseph Reveals Himself

to his Brothers, the e m o -

tional climax o f the story, had been represented in Medici art: in Cellini's m e d a l o f 1534 for C l e m e n t V I I to convey the message o f reconciliation and m a g n a n i m ity.40 A source for Bronzino's composition, this medal shows Joseph seated on a throne decorated w i t h Medici palle. T h e penultimate scene, Jacob Blessing Joseph's Children

(Fig. 176), is analogous in theme to Pontormo's lost Benediction

of the

Seed of Noah in S. L o r e n z o . Both w o r k s allude to Cosimo's f o u n d i n g o f a n e w Medici dynasty and the future transfer of Medici rule to his son, a theme also e m b o d i e d in the Moses frescoes in the C h a p e l o f Eleonora.

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FIGURE 1 7 6 .

Jacob Blessing

Joseph's Children

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CHAPTER TWELVE

C O S I M O DE' M E D I C I , A N E W

MOSES

The Choice of Moses for the Chapel of Eleonora Like the Story of Joseph tapestries, the chapel frescoes embody the conceit of Cosimo as an Old Testament hero.1 They must have suggested to their audience that the story of Cosimo and the Florentines might be analogous to the epic of Moses and the Israelites, and, at the same time, they provided their patron with an exemplar of rulership and appropriate princely action. Predating the Joseph tapestries by four or five years, the cycle might be regarded as a private experimentation with ideas later developed in a more public mode and in greater narrative detail. Among the important differences between these two decorations, however, is their context: in the tapestries an Old Testament hero was brought into the political arena of the Sala de' Dugento; in the Moses frescoes, allusions to Medicean themes were made in a devotional space. The selection of Moses as protagonist of the chapel frescoes must have been based on much the same rationale as that of Joseph for the tapestries. But Moses possessed additional qualities that made him ideally suited to Cosimo's purposes. First, he founded not just his line but a state. Second, he was a divinely assisted lawgiver; his epic contained repeated episodes in which the people, troubled by external threats and internal dissent, doubted him, only to be proved wrong by God's intervention. Cosimo's claims to legitimacy and power, as well as his promise of benefits to those who submitted to his rule, were well served by the story of the Crossing of the Red Sea, a dramatic episode of return and reconciliation: as

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Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, Cosimo would lead the Florentines into a new Golden Age of Medici rule. Moreover, the miracles of the Gathering of Manna, the Striking of the Rock, and the Brazen Serpent could associate Cosimo with the divinely aided ruler who quelled protest (sometimes harshly) and healed his people; and the appointment of Joshua presented Moses as an exemplar for Cosimo in providing for the future of the state. Thus, according to the typology of the chapel decoration, as Old Testament events prefigured the spiritual benefits and promise of salvation in the New Testament—with Moses and Christ understood as founders of the Old and New Covenants—so the temporal benefits brought to the new state by its founder, Cosimo, could lead to Florentine salvation. The pervasive influence of the Aramei and their obsession with the Old Testament in Florence around 1540 must have been a major reason an Old Testament subject was selected for the chapel, but other factors may have indicated the choice of Moses (rather than, say, Noah or Joseph) as the patriarch whose stories would be painted there. Given Cosimo's regard for traditional imagery of rule, one of these must have been the topos of Moses as a ruler's exemplar. It had been revived in cinquecento papal art, as, for example, in Michelangelo's Moses for the Tomb of Julius II (see Fig. 70). Moreover, Moses had appeared on Raphael's ceiling of the Stanza d'Eliodoro (along with Noah, Abraham, and Jacob) in Moses before the Burning Bush as an exemplar of divine intervention on behalf of the papacy, and Leo X had often been compared with the patriarch.2 But the most prominent example, and the work that provides the only real precedent for Bronzino's series, is the fresco cycle in the Sistine Chapel—also a palace chapel in which the ruler used Mosaic imagery for his personal glorification. As princeps of the Jews, Moses was a suitable papal model, and in the Sistine cycle medieval typology was manipulated to serve Pope Sixtus's claims to papal primacy.3 Moses and Christ—and, by implication, Sixtus—are presented in their multiple roles as lawgivers, rulers, and priests, and Moses thus becomes not only a type of Christ but a typus papae. Temporal rulers of the period, specifically Charles V, were also associated with Moses.4 For example, Beccafumi's Scenes of Moses on Mt. Sinai in the pavimento of Siena cathedral (see Fig. 150) was completed for a planned visit of Charles to Siena in 1530. A border around these scenes of Moses combatting idolatry contains an inscription with the emperor's name and imperial emblems (the eagle, Jupiter's thunderbolts), thus associating him with the powerful and divinely aided patriarch.5

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Another reason the new duke of Florence might have considered Moses a suitable subject for a decoration of the early 1540s was the association of Moses with princely virtù in contemporary political thought.6 In treatises de regimine principimi, biblical and historical figures are often cited as models of strong and virtuous rulership.7 In Machiavelli's II Principe (1532), the most important such treatise, Moses is prominently and repeatedly mentioned as a model for the coming redentore of Italy. Although the idea of such a savior figure goes against the cyclical theory of history characteristic of Medici thought, it is consistent with Medicean opportunism, which constantly suggests just this possibility. Moreover, Machiavelli's work was closely linked historically with the Medici, having been written during the first years of the family's restoration and dedicated in 1516 to Lorenzo the younger. Duke Cosimo is known to have been an adherent of Machiavelli's ideas.8 His historians, such as Nerli, Nardi, and Ammirato, were followers of Machiavelli's thought, and Bartoli, in his Discorsi istorici, reworked Machiavelli's theories, styling Cosimo the embodiment of the ideal prince who would rescue Florence from her political disorder.9 In ways that would have made the patriarch seem a particularly apt typus Cosmi, Machiavelli evokes Moses as a "strumento di Dio," an executor of God's will, destined to help his people in adversity.10 Machiavelli also evokes Moses in a precise political context, mentioning him repeatedly as a princely exemplar—a model of strong and virtuous leadership. But perhaps most significant in considering Machiavelli's Moses as a prototype for the chapel's Moses is Machiavelli's characterization of his exemplars as "uomini felici"—ancient and incorruptible leaders who were able to found their states and maintain their power not merely because they were instruments of God or were blessed with, fortuna, but because of their personal virtù. Moses is the first of four exemplars whom the new prince should follow: Ma, per venire a quelli che per propria virtu e non per fortuna sono diventati principi, dico che li più eccellenti sono Moisè, Ciro, Romolo, Teseo e simili." (But coming to those who through their own ability and not through Fortune became princes, I say that the most admirable are Moses, Cyrus, Romulus, Theseus, and the like.)

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T h a n k s to their virtù, these m e n became "potenti, securi, onorati, felici" (powerful, firm, honored, prosperous). 12 A s Machiavelli put it in the Discorsi, "gli u o m i n i possono secondare la f o r t u n a " (men can aid fortune). 13 T h i s harmonious relationship b e t w e e n fortuna

and virtù was fundamental to Cosimo's o w n presentation

o f himself as r u l e r — a n d he was often referred to in panegyric as a " u o m o felice." Machiavelli not only characterizes Moses as a typus principis and the epitome o f princely virtù but also cites him more frequently than his other three exemplars. Moses is cited (in both the Discorsi and the Principe) as a leader w h o used force to establish his state.14 Machiavelli makes it clear that a leader's virtù could be d e m onstrated only in times of crisis, that disaster represented an occasione

for the

prince, and that the use o f force was justified. Machiavelli's Moses w o u l d thus have been a perfect m o d e l for C o s i m o , a n e w prince attempting to justify his o w n unpopular m e t h o d s o f maintaining power (after the Battle o f Montemurlo). T h e choice o f Moses was analogous in this sense to that of the dictator C a m i l l u s for the frescoes o f the Sala delle U d i e n z e (see Fig. 2). Machiavelli's first illustration o f misfortune as an opportunity for the prince is Moses' leading his people out o f their enslavement in Egypt:

Era dunque necessario a Moisè trovare el populo d'Israel, in Egitto, stiavo et oppresso dalli Egizii, acciò che quelli, per uscire di servitù, si disponessino a seguirlo.15 (It was, then, necessary for Moses that the people of Israel be in Egypt, enslaved and downtrodden by the Egyptians, so that to escape from bondage they would prepare their minds for following him.)

Machiavelli cites this episode again w h e n he exhorts the divinely chosen Medici, w i t h their special conflation of fortuna

and virtu, to redeem Italy and m a k e it a

n e w Promised L a n d . In the prophetic language o f the O l d Testament he recomm e n d s that the Medici imitate Moses; and indeed, divine aid w o u l d come to them as it had to Moses:

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Qui è disposizione grandissima; né può essere, dove è grande disposizione, grande difficoltà, pur che quella pigli delli ordini di coloro che io ho proposti per mira. Oltre a questo, qui si veggano estraordinarii senza esemplo, condotti a Dio: el mare s'è aperto; una nube vi ha scòrto el cammino; la pietra ha versato acqua; qui è piovuto la manna; ogni cosa è concorsa nella vostra grandezza.16 (Now your opportunity is very great, and when there is great opportunity, there cannot be great difficulty, if only your family will use the methods of those whom I have proposed as models. Moreover, now we see marvelous, unexampled signs that God is directing you: the sea is divided; a cloud shows you the road; the rock pours out water; manna rains down; everything unites for your greatness.) Machiavelli thus suggests that a Medici principe, directed by God, could be a new Moses and that the signs of God's presence are revealed in the very miracles Bronzino was to paint in Eleonora's chapel—the Crossing of the Red Sea, Moses Striking the Rock, and the Gathering of Manna. Another Florentine thinker for whom Moses had been an important model was Savonarola—from whom, ironically, Machiavelli had derived many of his ideas about Moses as an exemplar of leadership. But Savonarola had evoked the patriarch as an anti-Medicean hero.17 For him, "Moyses, massimo de' profeti" (Moses, the greatest of the prophets) was an exemplar for the liberating hero who would lead the Florentines—the New Israelites—out of their difficulties. In his sermons during the time of Lorenzo il Magnifico, Savonarola had conflated this notion with anti-Medicean ideas.18 After the elevation of Cosimo to the dukedom, Savonarola's followers (the piagnoni) came forward, predicting that the unstable new regime would fall by the will of God and identifying Savonarola as a New Moses.19 Particularly subversive politically were the Capi rossi, a Savonarolan group that had infiltrated two lay confraternities at S. Maria Novella.20 The Savonarolans were so vociferous in denouncing Cosimo's rule as they preached political reform in Florence that Cosimo suppressed the Capi rossi in 1538 and silenced the piagnoni in 1545 by closing their convents at S. Marco and elsewhere.21 Given these circumstances, one might speculate that whatever other reasons there may have been for the choice, Cosimo adopted Savonarola's alter ego Moses as his own early in his rule in an effort to defuse the considerable power of these political opponents.

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Moses' Miracles in the Desert and Cosimo as Savior of

Florence

Through analogy with Moses in the Chapel of Eleonora frescoes, Cosimo—the divinely appointed ruler—is celebrated as the deliverer of his people from their enemies ( T h e Crossing of the Red Sea), as provider of the benefits symbolically represented by the water and the manna (Moses Striking the Roc\ and the Gathering of Manna), as healer (The Brazen Serpent), and—with Eleonora—as prudent provider for future rule in the Promised Land of Medici Florence (Moses Appointing Joshua). The frescoes of the miracles in the desert allude generically to Cosimo without suggesting specific events of his rule; The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua is a complex political allegory of Cosimo's power and his promise for the future. The linked scenes of Moses Striking the Rock and the Gathering of Manna (see Plate 8) symbolize the hope and promise of a new life: Moses feeds his people; the bread from heaven is a type of the Eucharist, and the water alludes to baptism, the blood of Christ, and the wine of the Eucharist. These scenes seem to carry a similar meaning in relation to the Medici, alluding to Cosimo's promises of prosperity.22 The subject had been used before in a Medici ruler's propaganda in Cellini's medal for Pope Clement VII, which carries an explicit political message of the pope's beneficence (Fig. 1 7 7 ) . Inscribed V T / B I B A T / P O P V L V S ( S O that the people

Benvenuto Cellini, medal with Moses S t r i k i n g the R o c k . B a r g e l l o .

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may drink), it c o m m e m o r a t e d Clement's o p e n i n g o f a well at S. Patrizio, O r v i e t o , that allowed water to be brought to Rome. 23 Likewise, Bronzino's Moses

Striking

the Rocl^ (with T e m p e r a n c e p o u r i n g the symbolic water to the left o f the scene) suggests the renewal o f Florence under C o s i m o , the water flowing f r o m the rock s i g n i f y i n g the hope his rule afforded Florentines for a new life o f peace and prosperity. Water carried connotations o f the pubblico

bene in other w o r k s of art f r o m

C o s i m o ' s early years. T h e idea was mooted in Gelli's verses for the w e d d i n g apparato, w h e r e Pistoia (the last o f the Tuscan cities to pay tribute to C o s i m o in the banquet entertainment) equates the d u k e with N e p t u n e , w h o calms the waves as C o s i m o calms civil discord. 24 A n d at Villa Castello, the water f r o m the fountains and grottoes ( w h i c h were actually part o f the reconstruction o f Florence's ancient water system) flowed around Tribolo's Fountain of Venus-Fiorenza,

symbolizing

C o s i m o ' s Florentine d o m a i n 2 5 The Brazen Serpent

(see Plate 7) continues the theme o f the benefits C o s i m o

b r o u g h t to the Florentines. T h e Israelites saved by their faith in the healing serpent are types o f those redeemed, or spiritually healed, by Christ's sacrifice on the cross. B u t they are also types o f the Florentines "saved" by C o s i m o , the divinely assisted ruler. A s a scene of healing, The Brazen Serpent echoes a traditional M e dicean conceit o f the family as healers o f political discord. Popular in Medici art because of the wordplay on the name Medici, 26 this conceit took on a broader significance in the early sixteenth century after Machiavelli proposed the Medici as a panacea for the sick body politic. Machiavelli's followers a m o n g Cosimo's h i s t o r i a n s — N e r l i , for e x a m p l e — i n v a r i a b l y saw C o s i m o as the healer o f civil discord, b r i n g i n g tranquillity and repose to Florence. 27 T h e theme o f C o s i m o medico may have been signaled in the chapel's portrait o f D u k e C o s i m o as St. C o s m a s by the saint's familiar attribute o f the medicine jar 28 and in The Brazen Serpent by the serpent w o u n d about the cross so that it resembles Mercury's caduceus, symbol o f medicine. 29 T h e caduceus is a specific i m a g e o f healing in other w o r k s commissioned by C o s i m o . A statue of A e s c u l a pius, designed by Tribolo in the late 1530s for a fountain at Villa Castello and placed in the m i d d l e o f a garden o f medicinal herbs,30 shows the healer (his head freely quoted f r o m Michelangelo's Moses; see F i g . 70), leaning against a giant caduceus (Fig. 178).

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FIGURE 178.

(After) Niccolò Tribolo, Aesculapius.

Palazzo Medici.

There is yet another topical dimension to The Brazen Serpent. All the miracles of Moses depicted in the chapel occurred after the people had rebelled against their leader, a biblical formula of the leader tested by his people's loss of faith in him.31 Moses—and Cosimo, too, it is suggested—obeys God's will and thus delivers his people, gaining their support and faith in his promises for their future. Unlike the episodes of the miraculous spring and the fall of manna, however, the story of the Brazen Serpent tells of the consequences of lack of faith. It begins with the murmuring of the people against Moses and God, continues with God's punishment of the rebels by sending down fiery serpents, and ends with the healing of the faithful through the intercession of Moses and the restoration of the

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Israelites' allegiance to their leader. T h i s scene, then, m i g h t be read as a justification o f C o s i m o ' s rule, and even of his autocratic methods o f controlling dissent. T h e theme o f punishment is heavily stressed in the fresco, w i t h its vivid images o f the dead and o f those w h o still struggle w i t h the killing serpents. T h e w o r k could be seen as w a r n i n g the Florentines against a rebellion like that o f t h e / « o rusciti, w h i c h led to the Battle of M o n t e m u r l o , and as a lesson about the consequences o f rebellion. A s such, it anticipates Cellini's Perseus, w h o s e apotropaic M e d u s a - h e a d trophy was held up to the Florentines in the P i a z z a della Signoria (see F i g . 7).32

T h e C r o s s i n g o f the Red Sea and the Battle of

Montemurlo

T h e fresco on the south wall o f the C h a p e l of Eleonora, w h i c h has an unbroken picture field and receives the best light, was reserved for the most important episodes f r o m the story of Moses and the chapel's key political message. For here the story o f Moses begins (with the Exodus) and ends (with the appointing o f his successor); and here the story of C o s i m o as a n e w Moses begins and e n d s — w i t h his delivery o f his o w n people and his promise for the future o f Florence under Medici rule. Bronzino's telling of the epic f r o m E x o d u s is a m o n u m e n t a l example o f the quintessential Medicean theme o f unjust exile and triumphant return, t a k i n g its place beside the Joseph tapestries and the C a m i l l u s cycle, the t w o m a j o r w o r k s commissioned by C o s i m o in the 1540s whose themes are the call to rule, the hero's t r i u m p h s in exile, his return to his country, his liberation o f his people, and his reconciliation w i t h them. The Crossing of the Red Sea thus carries a message about those destined by G o d to rule w h o were (like the Medici) cast out by their o w n people, then returned to liberate them. But its allegory may be even m o r e pointed, for it seems to allude to the event that m a d e possible the consolidation o f C o s i m o ' s principato—his

victory at M o n t e m u r l o on 1 A u g u s t 1537.33

It is difficult to appreciate the degree to w h i c h the duke and his supporters in the late 1530s understood this event as predestined by fate and absolutely decisive for Florentine history. T h e coincidence o f the date o f the Battle o f M o n t e m u r l o w i t h that of Augustus's victory at A c t i u m confirmed for them the exalted destiny that C o s i m o ' s " A u g u s t a n " natal horoscope had promised. C o s i m o was instantly

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styled a new Augustus, and the Capricorn impresa, which signaled the Augustan parallel, was featured on a medal of 1537-38 and became ubiquitous as a decorative device in Cosimo's early art.34 Works of art commissioned by Cosimo between 1537 and 1543 are filled with allusions to this victory. In the wedding entertainment, Gelli's song for Apollo that accompanied the tributes of the Tuscan cities to Cosimo included a description of an apologetic Montemurlo: Quel'; che vieti' poi lor dietro in veste oscura, Montemurlo è, che in voce assai tremante Quant'ogn'altro, perfama al ciel ti estolle; et perdon' chiede del suo Ardir' si foiled (The one who comes behind them in dark dress is Montemurlo, who, in a rather trembling voice, extols your fame to heaven as much as any other. And he asks pardon for his foolish arrogance.) The event was portrayed in one of the istorie in the decoration of the Palazzo Medici for Cosimo's wedding. Antonio di Donnino painted The Taking of Montemurlo, which was accompanied by devices alluding to the forces of fate that had brought about the victory. The only particular Vasari gives about this lost picture is that its background vignette represents "una scaramuccia di cavalli tanto bella" (a very beautiful skirmish of horses),36 but the painting seems to have rewritten history in the interest of Cosimo's image. Its pairing with Pierfrancesco Foschi's Giovanni delle Bande Nere Taking Biagrassa flattered Cosimo by implying that he had been present at Montemurlo and was thus a military hero like his father.37 In actuality, Cosimo had been far from the scene while his general Alessandro Vitelli led the battle.38 Another, different, celebration of Montemurlo is Battista Franco's Battle of Montemurlo with the Rape of Ganymede, a small picture painted for Cosimo before June 1539 that conflates the themes of the duke's personal power and his alliance with Charles V (Fig. 179).39 The battle is shown in the middle ground; at the right is the castle of Montemurlo, where the exiles had assembled; at the left, a view of Florence symbolizes the prize of the victory, news of which a horseman carries to Cosimo in the city. This private work, unlike the picture in the wedding apparato,

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FIGURE

179.

Battista Franco, The Battle of Montemurlo

with the Rape of

Ganymede.

Pitti.

shows the taking of the prisoners, among them Baccio Valori, archtraitor to the Medici and one of three important prisoners shortly to be executed. Vasari described this battle scene as "mescolato di poesia a suo capriccio" (mixed with his [Franco's] capricious poetry).40 Indeed, in an unusual juxtaposition, a rape of G a n y m e d e is enacted in the foreground, and an eagle ( = Jupiter) bears G a n y m e d e aloft. It is generally agreed that the scene is an allegory of the fealty of Cosimo (Ganymede) to Charles (Jupiter); it celebrates, in particular, the imperial privilegio that had confirmed Cosimo's ducal status the very month after Montemurlo. 41 Vasari's comment—that in this picture the young duke "era per virtù di D i o salito in cielo" (had risen by the grace of G o d into heaven)—also makes it clear that Battista's work concerns Cosimo's destiny, his coming to power through divine providence. 42

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T h e event was also alluded to in various indirect ways: Salviati's Battle of the Latins and the Volscians (see F i g . 2) and Triumph of Camillus

(see Fig. 161) allude

to Cosimo's victory; Tribolo's Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus at Villa Castello (see F i g . 3) and D o m e n i c o di Polo's medal o f the same subject are allegories o f C o s i m o ' s H e r c u l e a n fortitude in defeating the exiles. Cellini's Perseus (see F i g . 7) and the relief on its base, Perseus Liberating

Andromeda,

c o m b i n i n g allusions to

Cosimo's special destiny, his legitimacy, and his power, may also be read as referring to his victory at M o n t e m u r l o and his liberation of Florence. 43 Bronzino's Crossing of the Red Sea belongs with this g r o u p o f w o r k s . It draws on an ancient tradition o f the biblical episode as an allegory o f a contemporary battle. T h i s topos originated w i t h Eusebius, w h o compared Constantine's victory over Maxentius w i t h Moses' victory over the pharaoh and styled the e m p e r o r a n e w Moses. 44 T h e subject had also been treated as a political allegory in literature and oratory in Renaissance Venice, w h e r e there was a traditional association between the doge and Moses, the Venetian state and the Promised L a n d , and the Venetians and the C h o s e n People. 45 In the early sixteenth century, in particular, the C r o s s i n g o f the R e d Sea was the subject of several Venetian w o r k s , and their topical reference is clear. A n important one that B r o n z i n o may have k n o w n is Titian's w o o d c u t (see Fig. 154). T h e d r o w n i n g soldiers in the u n i f o r m s of the G e r m a n armies and the spires o f a G e r m a n i c city in the distance allude to the war o f the Serenissima against the L e a g u e o f C a m b r a i and, more specifically, to the rout o f the imperial troops after the defeat at A g n a d e l l o in 1509, the miraculous recovery o f Venetian territories, and the achievement of peace, w h i c h is symbolized by a C a r i t a s — t h e w o m a n nursing her child in the right foreground. 4 6 W h e r e a s Venetian examples emphasize the C h o s e n People more than the virtu o f the individual leader, in Bronzino's fresco the conceit o f C o s i m o as a n e w Moses has unmistakable contemporary reference. T h e soldiers in the Red Sea are not merely d r o w n i n g but are vividly characterized as pairs o f struggling

figures,

suggesting a battle scene (Fig. 180). A s in many Renaissance w o r k s depicting historical battles, the e n e m y is characterized as the T u r k , the enemy of C h r i s t e n d o m . Details o f the soldiers' costumes are T u r k i s h and a shield floating on the water bears the crescent and t w o stars of the T u r k i s h flag.47 Moreover, to the left above the shield is a red banner s h o w i n g one w h i t e crescent. T h e coat o f arms o f the S t r o z z i , Cosimo's chief opponents a m o n g the fuorusciti,

has three white crescents

on a red g r o u n d , as can be seen in a detail f r o m Filippino Lippi's frescoes in the S t r o z z i C h a p e l (Fig. i8i). 4S Filippo Strozzi, head of the family, had been a vocal

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FIGURE I 80.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Crossing of the Red Sea, detail, drowning soldiers.

critic of Cosimo at the time of his election, expressing the cynical expectations of the republicans that the leaders of the new regime "vogliono continuare nel passato governo senz'alterare altro che '1 nome da Alessandro a Cosimo" (want to continue the former government without changing anything except the name, f r o m Alessandro to Cosimo). 49 Strozzi was taken prisoner at Montemurlo; proclaiming himself a martyr for the republic, he committed suicide in Cosimo's prison in the Fortezza di S. Giovanni. T h e banner in The Crossing of the Red Sea, then, would seem to signal that Moses' victory over the Egyptians is to be read also as the victory of Cosimo over his enemies at Montemurlo.

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F i g u r e i8 i.

Filippino Lippi, angel with the Strozzi arms. S. Maria Novella, Strozzi Chapel.

Years later, in Duke Cosimo de Medici and the Prisoners of Montemurlo (Fig. 182), Vasari portrayed Strozzi and the other prisoners bound in submission before an Augustan Cosimo, being crowned with laurel by Victory.50 Vasari's picture belongs to the period of triumph after Cosimo's second victory over the Florentine exiles in 1555. Such a scene would have been out of keeping with the tactful imagery of his early art, exemplified in Bandinelli's Giovanni delle Bande Nere Receiving Prisoners on the base of the monument to Cosimo's father (see Fig. 4), which would have been read as a thinly veiled reference to Cosimo's notorious seizure of political prisoners at Montemurlo.51

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FIGURE

I

82.

Giorgio Vasari, Du\e Cosimo de' Medici and the Prisoners of Montemurlo. Palazzo Vecchio, Sala di Cosimo.

I have suggested that the choice of Moses as a subject, as well as the particular stories illustrated in the C h a p e l o f Eleonora, may have been influenced by II Principe, w h e r e Moses is presented as an exemplar of rulership and the C r o s s i n g o f the Red Sea is twice cited as an example o f an occasione for the ruler. W h e t h e r or not Machiavelli's treatise was in fact a point of departure for Bronzino's Moses cycle, a parallel between C o s i m o and Moses was explicitly m a d e in the panegyrics o f the grand-duke's apologists. In his 1578 biography, Baccio Baldini styled C o simo a n e w Moses and, w r i t i n g of the duke's divinely aided rule of Florence, even c o m p a r e d the Battle of M o n t e m u r l o to the Crossing o f the Red Sea:

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[Cosimo] potette ragionevolmente cantare quell'Hinno il quale cantò già Moise, quando egli vidde Faraone con tutta quella sua grande, bella et ponderosa hoste esser andato sotto l'onde del mar rosso.52 ([Cosimo] could, with good reason, sing that hymn that Moses sang when he saw the Pharaoh drowning in the waves of the Red Sea along with his large and powerful host.)

T h e passage recalls the literary topos of the victor as a new M o s e s — i n this case, Constantine, w h o sang a hymn to god for his victory.55 T h e images adjacent to The Crossing of the Red Sea may also allude to the victory at Montemurlo, at least in a general way. Prudence (see Fig. 35) might suggest the duke's prudent decision to engage the exiles in battle, and Fortitude (see Fig. 37) his strength in achieving the victory over the rebels.54 Rosello lauded C o s i m o s fortitude in the victory at Montemurlo in his treatise on princes: "Quanta reputatione doni al Prencipe la fortezza . . . II Prencipe d'animo valoroso puó raffrena da i vitii un popolo ribello." (What fame may fortitude grant the prince! . . . T h e prince of valorous spirit can restrain a rebellious populace from vices.)55 T h e choice of St. Michael (not a Medici saint) for the position to the left of the Red Sea may also relate to the theme of victory (see Plate 3). T h e saint symbolizes the victory of good over evil, the putting down of rebel angels, and the restoration of order in heaven. As such, he brings to a climax a theme of the punishment of evil in the chapel frescoes (seen in The Brazen Serpent and in The Crossing of the Red Sea). But the victory over evil may also be Cosimo's and the saint an emblem of the defeat of the insurgent fuorusciti (known as rebels, as in Rosello's "popolo ribello," quoted above). St. Michael, the princeps militiae angelorum (prince of the angelic a r m y ) — t h e protector of the Church Militant—thus stands also for the Medici prince in triumph, and the wordplay princeps/principe would not have been lost on the contemporary observer. Bronzino characterized the saint as a powerful victor, with his

flattened,

swastika-like position making unmistakable reference to the Nike (or Victory) sculptures of ancient art. His prominent sword, as compared with the partly hid-

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den scales o f justice, also emphasizes his role as a symbol o f fortitude. In this sense, St. Michael

is analogous to another personification o f victory designed by

B r o n z i n o for the d u k e — t h e tapestry Justice Liberating

Innocence,

w h e r e the fig-

ure is also surrounded by the fruits of Medicean renewal and fertility (see Fig. 103).

Moses A p p o i n t i n g Joshua and the Birth of Francesco de' Medici T h e S t r o z z i arms in the Red Sea and the reading o f the scene as an allegory o f C o s i m o ' s victory at M o n t e m u r l o suggest a political message in Moses

Appointing

Joshua as well (see Plate 30).56 Several elements in the scene point to such a contemporary level o f reference. T h e first is Bronzino's handling o f the figure o f Moses, w h o s e importance is suggested by his large scale, his central position in the scene, his imperial gesture, and his placement in relation to the chapel's a l t a r — h e looks and gestures toward it. In this, he is like Danti's Joshua-Cosimo (see F i g . 173), originally placed in the C h a p e l of St. L u k e so that he looked directly across to the altar. T h e second indicator o f a topical m e a n i n g in this scene is the presence o f portraits. Moses (unlike Joshua) can be depicted only as a bearded patriarchal type, and thus he does not bear the y o u n g Cosimo's features. F i g u r e s in the g r o u p around M o s e s — E l e a z a r , the red-turbaned m a n between h i m and Moses, and the m a n w e a r i n g the blue costume and close-fitting hat to the right o f M o s e s — h o w ever, all seem to be portraits. I can positively identify only one of them: Cosimo's secretary Riccio, also a priest and canon of the D u o m o , is portrayed as the priest E l e a z a r (Fig. 183), a likeness that may be compared with the sharper characterization o f h i m in his clerical robes dating f r o m 1550 (Fig. 184).57 A s Eleazer turns and gestures deferentially to Moses, as if to signal to the audience his act o f appointing Joshua, s o — a s Cosimo's secretary R i c c i o — t h i s m a n calls attention to his patron's c o m m a n d i n g gesture. Portraiture o f this kind in Florentine chapel frescoes had been a c o m m o n p l a c e since the late quattrocento, w i t h portraits of donors, political and literary

figures,

and artists frequently included in religious narratives. 58 Particularly relevant in the present context is G o z z o l i ' s Procession of the Magi (see Fig. 13), a possible m o d e l for various aspects o f Bronzino's chapel; it is populated w i t h Medici family m e m bers and their contemporaries, w i t h the most prominent family portraits concentrated on the wall to the right of the entrance, w h e r e B r o n z i n o also placed his

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FIGURE

183.

Chapel of Eleonora, Moses Appointing Joshua, detail, portrait of Pierfrancesco Riccio.

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FIGURE

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184.

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31

2

(Attributed to) Francesco Salviati, Pierfrancesco Riccio. Prato, Palazzo Comunale.

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portraits. We might also recall the many portraits in Florentine works contemporary with the chapel decoration, such as Bronzino's Christ in Limbo (see Fig. 10) and Pierino's Duf^e Cosimo de' Medici as Patron of Pisa (see Fig. 174). A contemporary reading of Moses appointing Joshua his successor is also suggested by the frequent depiction of appointment and investment subjects in Renaissance art in allusion to contemporary events.59 The scene of Moses appointing Joshua in Signorelli's Last Acts and Death of Moses in the Sistine Chapel, on which elements of Bronzino's composition seem to depend (see Fig. 157), is such a work. The appointing scene is not the main one in the fresco, and it is not paired with a corresponding New Testament episode,60 but the transfer of sacerdotal authority that it represents was suited to the cycle's secondary theme of papal primacy; indeed, the event is even displaced from its proper historical context and shown as the last act of Moses before his death.61 Likewise, in the Chapel of Eleonora the prominence of the episode asks for an explanation related to the fresco's political content. Bronzino's depiction of Moses appointing Joshua is replete with allusions to traditional Florentine civic imagery of rule. Joshua had been an exemplar of virtu in republican Florence of the quattrocento, when Donatello's colossal statue of a young Joshua stood on the north tribune of the Duomo; 62 it signified the courage and strength of the Florentines, who, like the hero, would guard their Promised Land against its enemies. Bronzino's youthful Joshua may also have had such connotations; certainly Danti's later Joshua-Cosimo (see Fig. 173) was intended to be read as having won the Promised Land of Tuscany.63 Another significant detail is Moses' rod, which had been understood from earliest times as the insignia of the divinely appointed ruler.64 It is also held by Signorelli's Moses, who actually gives it to Joshua, and the duke raises it in Pierino's relief to direct the establishment of the law and the rule of the virtues and the arts in Pisa (see Fig. 174). Bronzino's fresco conflates the characters of Cosimo and Moses (who stands behind Cosimo in Pierino's relief), with Moses' rod signifying Cosimo's divinely assisted rule. In both these works, Moses' rod may also have been intended to bring to mind the bastone del dominio (baton of rule), which had been the insignia of the captain general of the Florentine forces in the time of the republic.65 The association of the bastone with Cosimo—it appears as his attribute in the Justice spandrel (see Plate 13), in Salviati's Triumph of Camillus (see Fig. 161), and in Danti's Joshua— reads as an assertion of his legitimate claim to rule Florence.

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A l l these factors suggest that Moses Appointing Joshua, as an image of the passing of rule from Moses to his successor, carries a message akin to that of Signorelli's allusion to papal succession in the Joshua episode in the Sistine Chapel. It alludes to D u k e Cosimo's establishment of a new Medici dynasty: as Moses provides for the future of the Israelites by designating Joshua, w h o will lead them to the Promised Land, so Cosimo provides for an orderly transfer of government and the continuation of the state by producing with Eleonora an heir w h o will rule Florence in a new Medici Golden Age. 66 In light of this reading, we might look again at the population of the foreground of the fresco, particularly the seated women with their children to the left, w h o belong to the scene of the departure for the Red Sea, and the soldier and the reclining nude at the right, w h o belong to the appointment of Joshua episode. A l l these figures appear to signal the Pax Medicea after Montemurlo, a theme that is also seen in Salviati's Peace Burning Arms (see Fig. 2) and the pendant Arno with a View of Florence in the Sala delle Udienze. 67 T h e women are Caritas figures of the type that appear as emblems of peace at the lower right of Titian's Crossing of the Red Sea, which likewise alludes to peace after battle (see Fig. 154). A n d the soldier kneeling in front of the patriarch, together with the discarded sword on the rock in the foreground, would seem to allude to the same idea. Finally, I would propose that the appointment of Joshua may refer not just to the general idea of Cosimo's establishment of a new Medici dynasty in the peaceful aftermath of conflict but also, specifically, to the birth and baptism of his heir, Francesco de' Medici, which was so crucial to his quest for Florentine autonomy. 68 This important dynastic theme first appeared in the duke's art in the wedding apparato. T h e statue of Fecundity that Eleonora would have seen on her entry through the Porta al Prato into Florence made clear the role she was to play in Cosimo's future. Dynastic imagery was a leitmotif of the Palazzo Medici decorations, where a lunette compared Cosimo to Aeneas,69 and inscriptions accompanying the istorie insistently referred to Aeneas-Cosimo. T h i s line of propaganda reached a climax in Bronzino's Marriage by Proxy of Duke Cosimo with its imperative motto, "Bear children quickly!" 7 0 Francesco was born on 25 March 1541. This propitious date coincided with the feast of the Annunciation, the first day of the Florentine year, and the date of the legendary founding of the city; ducal supporters greeted the birth as a sign that fate had indeed destined the Medici to rule Florence. 71

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The date selected for the baptism in the Florentine Baptistery was i August, the anniversary of the Battle of Montemurlo, a day that had already been designated one of Cosimo's giorni felici (lucky days) and celebrated as a public holiday. Thus Francesco's baptism would fall on the same day of the year as the event that had marked the duke's assurance of Medici power in Florence. Furthermore, the Baptistery was believed to have once been a temple of Mars and was held up as evidence of the city's glory as a Roman colony. A Medici baptism celebrated there could only dramatize the association of the Medici with the ancient traditions and renewal of the city itself. Charles V bestowed the imperial stamp of approval by agreeing to be godfather to the child, and the baptism took place, according to Settimanni's diary, "con grandissima solennità e pompa" (with the greatest pomp and circumstance).72 The apparato, executed in haste to be ready for the significant date, conflated the Old Testament, the New Testament, and two generations of Medici. Vasari's Baptism of Christ implied a parallel with that of the Medici infant, and his paintings featuring Moses and Noah—The Crossing of the Red Sea and The Deluge—would have suggested Duke Cosimo. Moreover, in view of the traditional association of the Crossing of the Red Sea with victory in battle, Vasari's painting may have been understood as alluding to the victory at Montemurlo. This conflation of themes of prophecy, fulfillment, and renewal thus dramatized the symbolic ritual of the baptism of the Medici heir, turning the occasion into a compelling pronouncement of the rebirth of Florence under Medici rule. In Gelli's poem "Sopra il battesimo dell'unico figiuolo di Sua Eccellenza" (On the baptism of the only son of His Excellency) the speaker is the Arno, who expresses the hope that Francesco will bring about the return of the Golden Age of the Medici and that divine providence will give him the strength to fight the enemies of Florence, the. fuorusciti™ In very different language (without the Old Testament metaphors), Gelli associates the baptism of the Medici heir and the Battle of Montemurlo. Bronzino's fresco The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua was begun in late 1541, some months after the baptism. It transforms ideas from the poetry of Gelli and the ephemeral decorations of the apparato into permanent visual form, joining The Crossing of the Red Sea, with its topical reference to Cosimo's victory at Montemurlo, with Moses Appointing Joshua, which may be read as alluding to the birth and baptism of Francesco de' Medici.

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T w o further features o f the w o r k may allude to these Medicean events o f 1541. T h e first is a detail that seems to bring together different layers o f m e a n i n g in the fresco: the spoils of the Egyptians at the center foreground, w h i c h separate yet join the t w o Moses episodes (Fig. 185). T h e s e vessels allude to baptism, s i g n i f y i n g the water o f the sacrament that the Crossing of the Red Sea prefigures, but the decoration on them is Medicean. T h e theme of Venus with the shell that symbolizes her birth f r o m the sea had often been used in Medici a r t — a s in Botticelli's Birth of Venus (Gallería degli U f f i z i ) — t o symbolize Medici renewal. T h e snake handle on the silver ewer alludes to the Medici impresa of the snake turning back on its tail, s i g n i f y i n g the family's eternal life. ( T h e snakes in The Brazen

Serpent

and the P r u d e n c e spandrel also seem to carry this meaning; see Plate 7 and Fig. 35.) T h e decoration of both these "baptismal" vessels thus alludes to familiar themes o f M e d i c i renewal and immortality. T h e second is the g r o u p o f w o m e n w i t h a child behind Moses (Plate 32). T h e s e four w o m e n — t h e main one o f w h o m is p r e g n a n t — b e a r an astonishing resemblance to those in Pontormo's Visitation at C a r m i g n a n o , a hint of a N e w Testament reference within the Moses scene that is underscored by the baby carried by the pregnant woman's attendant. H e is reminiscent o f the C h r i s t child; moreover, his gesture o f lifting the hat-veil o f the w o m a n carrying h i m , as if to put it over his o w n head, is a m o t i f that appears in Renaissance M a d o n n a s , w h e r e the V i r g i n , or Christ himself, draws her veil over his head in prophetic allusion to the veils o f the Passion. 74 B r o n z i n o k n e w this m o t i f and experimented w i t h it in a d r a w i n g o f the 1540s for a H o l y F a m i l y (Fig. 186).75 T h i s imagery o f pregnancy and birth, with its suggestion of the birth o f the Savior, has little to do w i t h Moses, the Crossing o f the Red Sea, or the appointing o f Joshua. T h e s e figures must have been painted here in reference to Eleonora genetrix—to

the theme o f fertility and procreation that is signaled in the chapel

decoration by the putti and fruits o f the vault and, perhaps, by the unusual n u m ber o f w o m e n and children in the wall frescoes. T h e pregnant w o m a n ' s status is signaled by her conspicuous placement behind Moses; Joshua looks back at Moses and at her, their three heads being precisely aligned on a diagonal that is emphasized by the men's gestures toward the altar. She is pointedly linked w i t h Moses by the child, w h o is intersected by the rays o f light f r o m the patriarch's head and w h o reaches out and touches his mother's arm as if to g u i d e her f o r w a r d . Moreover, her aristocratic bearing and rich clothing are unlike those o f the other Israelite w o m e n . H e r red dress has a w i d e gilded border

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FIGURE [85.

Chapel of Eleonora, The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing

Joshua,

detail, ewer and basin.

FIGURE 186.

Bronzino (reworked?), study for a Holy Family. F r a n k f u r t , Stadelsches Kunstinstitut.

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i

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around the neckline with a grotesque head all'antica (like those on MosesCosimo's leggings), and she wears a golden crown-like headdress. This woman can only be intended to allude to Eleonora herself and the birth of Francesco. The issue of decorum arises here, but the pregnant woman is not, after all, an actual portrait likeness of the duchess, any more than Moses is a portrait of Cosimo. And we might bear in mind that a pregnant Eleonora would not have been an unrealistic image, for Eleonora had hardly ever been seen by Bronzino or any others involved in the planning of the chapel decoration in any other condition.76 The allusion to the duchess adds to the concentration of key political imagery in the chapel decoration on the wall to the right of the altar, completing the Medicean message of the fresco: as Cosimo, a new Moses, delivers the Florentines from their enemies and establishes the principato, Eleonora produces an heir so that the Medici may eternally rule the Promised Land of Florence. The devotional and Medicean levels of meaning in the chapel decoration also intersect in the vault above this wall in St. Francis, who has a greater topical significance than the other vault saints (see Plate 17). At the time of the chapel's commission, Cosimo and Eleonora were personally devoted to St. Francis and to the cult of the stigmatization,77 and their observance may ultimately have determined the choice of the subject of the vault compartment above The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua. The Medici heir born in 1541 was named after St. Francis. This choice of name was clearly made for reasons of personal piety, for Francesco was not a traditional Medicean name, nor was it the name of a relative, as were the other ducal children's names.78 The naming of the child was connected with the Franciscan shrine at La Verna, site of the stigmatization. According to Cosimo's biographer, Ammirato, Fù posto al fanciullo nome Francesco, imperoche la Duchessa visitando la state passata i luoghi santissimi della Vernia; si botò a Dio, se per intercession del suo fedelissimo servo Francesco, il quale in que' luoghi vivendo havea aspra et innocente vita menato, era per nascerle figliuol maschio, non per altro nome, che per quel di Francesco hauerlo à chiamare.79 (The child was called Francesco, since the Duchess, on a visit to the sacred place La Verna the preceding summer [1540], vowed to God that if, through the in-

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tercession of his loyal servant Francesco, who had lived a frugal and chaste life there, she were granted a son, she would have him called by no other name than that of Francesco.)

Eleonora's vow at La Verna was also evoked in Gelli's poem celebrating Francesco's baptism, where a personification of the Arno tells of the new Francesco, named according to his mother's vow at La Verna, where the Arno River has its 80

source. St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, its subject rarely depicted outside Franciscan churches and chapels, must have been charged with personal meaning for the ducal couple. St. Francis is placed on the vault directly above The Crossing of the Red Sea, the Old Testament figure of baptism, with its ritual of naming. And he is also above Moses Appointing Joshua, an allegory of the new dynasty Cosimo established with the birth of Francesco. Symbolically, St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata thus relates not only to the renovatio of the Church, which St. Francis embodies, but also to the rebirth of Medici power. As a celebration of the renewal made possible by Cosimo's victory at Montemurlo and the birth of Francesco de' Medici, The Crossing of the Red Sea and Moses Appointing Joshua, with St. Francis above it, thus complements the chapel's underlying devotional theme of prophecy and fulfillment by projecting the message of Medici renewal and rule into the future.81

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CHAPTER T H I R T E E N

THE

P R O G R A M M E OF T H E

CHAPEL

T h e intermeshed religious and political meanings in the decoration of the Chapel of Eleonora bring up yet again the question of the authorship of the chapel's programme. Did its patrons, Eleonora and Cosimo, have any role in determining the chapel's imagery? To what extent did Bronzino, poet and learned member of the Accademia Fiorentina, determine the details of the paintings? A n d , if there were advisers on hand, who were they? We have little indication that Eleonora influenced the choice of the subjects for the paintings in her chapel, but she does seem to have been consulted on at least one aesthetic decision. Cosimo's letter to Bandinelli of late 1542, in which he tells the artist, " O u r consort likes the drawing of the Pietà," indicates that she was asked for an opinion about Bandinelli's modello for the altarpiece. In 1545, however, when Bronzino was preparing to paint a replica of the Lamentation altarpiece after Cosimo had sent the original to Granvelle, it was the duke, not Eleonora, who instructed the artist: "Don't introduce any new ideas because I like that one [altarpiece]." But about this same time, if we are to believe Vasari, E l e o n o r a — undoubtedly piqued at Cosimo for giving away her altarpiece—asserted herself in choosing the subject for new wings to flank the replica commissioned from Bronzino. She had the original side panels of St. John and St. Cosmas (a portrait of the duke!) put in storage and commissioned the more traditional (and feminine) devotional subject of the Annunciation in their place.

Although the only paintings in the chapel whose subjects are demonstrably connected with Eleonora are St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata and Moses Appointing Joshua, Eleonora's personal history may have some bearing on the use of mainly Old Testament subjects in the chapel decorations. Eleonora's childhood tutor was Donna Benvenida Abravanel, the wife of Don Samuele, who was financial adviser to Eleonora's father. Donna Benvenida was a notable intellectual and patroness of learning and a member of a noble Jewish family.1 Although she cannot have been responsible for Eleonora's religious upbringing, Donna Benvenida was on intimate terms with her pupil, who called her madre, and she remained close to Eleonora even after Eleonora's marriage and departure from Naples. 2 Thus, the possibility, at least, of Eleonora's sympathy for Old Testament subjects cannot be discounted. In spite of reports that Eleonora saw Bandinelli's drawing and later chose the subject of the new wings for the altarpiece, much of the imagery of her own chapel (especially as originally conceived) hardly alludes to her at all. Rather than celebrate the duchess, or female saints with whom she might have identified, the chapel decorations depict patriarchal and saintly exemplars for Cosimo as ruler. Where the chapel paintings (such as Moses Appointing Joshua) relate to Eleonora at all, they celebrate Eleonora genetrix, for she is evoked in the chapel's imagery only in connection with her marriage and progeny. The chapel's Medicean imagery is thus consistent with Eleonora's personal imagery in other works of the 1540s—especially the dynastic portraits with her sons (see Figs. 23 and 26)—and other imagery of her as Juno, goddess of matrimony, that was to crystallize later. As the primary audience for the chapel's imagery, the duchess must have been reminded of her circumscribed role in Cosimo's scenario each time she attended Mass in her chapel. As to who might have aided Bronzino in determining the images to be represented in the chapel, Riccio, Gelli, and Giambullari are likely candidates among the literati in ducal service in 1540. Riccio was a close associate of Cosimo's as majordomo, secretary, and liaison with the duke's artists. That Bronzino portrayed Riccio in Moses Appointing Joshua (see Fig. 183) attests to the majordomo's involvement in the chapel project—probably as the intermediary between the duke and Bronzino. But although Riccio was an Academy member, he was not a scholar.3 Lacking evidence for his involvement in Cosimo's other artistic programmes, I am inclined to read the portrait as a tribute not to Riccio's intellect or knowledge but to his power at court—at Cosimo's side, as Bronzino shows him.

321

Gelli and/or Giambullari had collaborated successfully, just before the commission of the chapel, on the wedding apparato—the

only securely documented

instance of "learned advisers" in Cosimo's early art. We know that Riccio, w h o had to approve of everyone w h o worked at the court, was close to his fellow academicians. H e wrote often and in glowing terms about their lezioni (lectures) at the Accademia Fiorentina. For example, on 11 November 1542 he writes to Pagni, " D o m a n i legge il Giambullari e così si andrà seguendo allegramente" (tomorrow Giambullari is reading and I will go happily [to hear him]); and, two days later: M'ero scordato di dire a V. S. che domenica all' Accademia il Giambullari fece una bella e gran lectione con sodisfactione universale. Et il mio Gello si va preparando per fare honore a S. Ex.a, et li prometto che la sarà cosa da non si vergognare da nessuna altra.4 (I had forgotten to tell Your Lordship that on Sunday at the academy Giambullari gave a fine long lecture, to everyone's satisfaction, and that my [friend] Gelli is readying [one] in honor of His Excellency—and I promise that it will be something no one will be ashamed of.)

Gelli and Giambullari were both scholars of the Old Testament; their expertise was already evident in the wedding apparato, and their special interest in the legend of N o a h as founder of Tuscany may have determined the unusual emphasis on N o a h in Pontormo's S. Lorenzo choir frescoes. Moreover, both men were Moses scholars. In II Gello, Giambullari writes of "l'infallibile scritto di Mose" (the infallible writings of Moses), w h o he thought was the author of Genesis. 5 A n d Gelli, in Dell'origine di Firenze, also mentions the patriarch frequently, even giving Moses a title that suggests he was thinking of Cosimo: writing of Old Testament chroniclers w h o could be relied on, he declares: "In fra i quali Moises duca del populo hebreo sara il primo" (Among those [writers] Moses, duke of the Hebrew people, would be the first).6 H e notes that Moses as a writer was "illuminato del divino lume" (illuminated by divine light) and that he seconded his writings "con grandissimi miracoli" (with the greatest miracles). In short, Moses was regarded by both Gelli and Giambullari as the most important source for their theories of Old Testament history.

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FIGURE I

87.

Christ in Limbo, detail, portraits of Celli and Giambullari as Moses and Abraham. Museo dell'Opera di S. Croce.

Bronzino was on intimate terms with the members of the Academy Varchi,7 Martini, Giambullari, and Gelli; and he had belonged to the very select group of the Umidi, joining the Accademia Fiorentina on n February 1540 as the first artist member.8 There is also evidence in his paintings of his friendship with Giambullari and, especially, Gelli. Vasari recounts that Bronzino portrayed his artist and academician friends in the guise of biblical figures in Christ in Limbo (see Fig. 10), "fra quali è Jacopo Pontormo, Giovanbattista Gelli, assai famoso accademico fiorentino, et il Bacchiacca dipintore" (among them is Jacopo Pontormo, Giambattista Gelli, [the] rather famous Florentine academician, and the painter Bachiacca).9 The inseparable academicians are prominently placed just to the left of Pontormo—and of Christ (Fig. 187).10 In a clever commentary on

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Giambullari's involvement in Mosaic studies, B r o n z i n o depicted him as a whitebearded Moses complete w i t h horns and the Tablets of the L a w (the latter not visible in the illustration). Gelli has no identifying attributes, but a contemporary p o e m about this picture describes it as s h o w i n g " A b r a m , Moise e ciascun altro P a d r e " ( A b r a h a m , Moses, and some other father); thus he may be identified as Abraham. 1 1 B r o n z i n o had portrayed Gelli earlier in one o f the tapestries of the Story o f Joseph cycle. W e hear about this portrait in ironic poetry addressed to Gelli by his enemies. A n e p i g r a m by A l f o n s o de' Pazzi begins, " G e l l o , io t'ho visto in un panno d ' a r a z z o " (Gello, I have seen you in a tapestry). 12 A p o e m by G r a z z i n i , " A Giambattista Gelli," mentions B r o n z i n o by name and implies, in the secret lang u a g e o f burlesque poetry, that there was an intimate friendship between the t w o men. It ends w i t h a reference to Bronzino's portrait o f Gelli:

. . . filosofo volgar, poeta pazzo, dipinto vivo in un panno d'arazzo" (. . . crude philosopher, crazy poet, depicted true to life in a tapestry.)

G e l l i is easily recognizable in Bronzino's Joseph in Prison and the Pharaoh's

Ban-

quet (see Plate 33) as the m a n standing in imposing full length, w h o has his broad features, large expressive eyes, high forehead, and bald pate. T h i s m a n is the pharaoh's chief butler, a characterization that may be Bronzino's witty c o m m e n t on Gelli's artisan status, for, although an academician, he was a shoemaker by profes14

sion. In s u m , given the O l d Testament subject matter o f the C h a p e l o f Eleonora frescoes; given the many connections between Bronzino, G i a m b u l l a r i , and Gelli; and given their e m p l o y m e n t by C o s i m o in 1539 for the comprehensive w e d d i n g apparato p r o g r a m m e , Gelli, G i a m b u l l a r i , or both could well have continued immediately thereafter in the duke's service (as B r o n z i n o did), collaborating w i t h B r o n z i n o in devising the p r o g r a m m e for Eleonora's chapel. I believe that the evidence tips slightly toward Bronzino's friend and fellow poet Gelli, however. H e

M E D I C E A N

M E A N I N G

OF

T H E

C H A P E L

was an Old Testament scholar, the author of verses in the wedding apparato that adumbrate themes in the chapel, and the author of the poem I have cited on the baptism of Francesco.' 5 This poem, like the Chapel of Eleonora, celebrates Cosimo's elevation to the dukedom, the victory at Montemurlo, Eleonora's vow at La Verna, and the founding of a new Medici dynasty by the birth of Cosimo and Eleonora's son Francesco.

P R O G R A M M E

OF

THE

CHAPEL

APPENDIX

OF

DOCUMENTS

This appendix contains documents directly related to the Chapel of Eleonora in chronological order. Many others are quoted or cited in the notes; all are indexed in the Index of Documents Cited. For each document in this appendix I have indicated in a note the initial publication, quotation, or reference to the document, if any. All letters (except those of unusual length dealing with extraneous matters) are quoted in extenso, but only the relevant passages of ricordi, payments, and inventories are given. I have checked and made complete transcriptions of all documents with the aid of Dott. Gino Corti, to whom I am most grateful. He should not, however, be held accountable for any errors of transcription or interpretation. All dates in the headings and interpolated in the documents are New Style. Original idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies of spelling have been retained. Transcriptions, both complete and partial, of unpublished documents i, 4 - 6 , and 1 5 - 1 6 were given to me by Edward Sanchez, to whose generosity I am greatly indebted.

327

Doc. i PAYMENTS

TO B R O N Z I N O

AND B A C H I A C C A ,

29

APRIL

1542

TO

19

JANUARY

1543.1

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 600 (Ricordi, copie di lettere ed altro pertinenti all' Ill. mo S.or Duca di Firenze C o s i m o de Medici per mano di P.° Frane. 0 Riccio) f. ior E addì detto [29 A p r i i 1542] si fece una poliza al Pretino che pagasse al Bronzino scudi viii et scudi iiii al Baiacca a buon conto

scudi 12

f. 1 i r E addì detto [3 June 1542] si fece una poliza al Pretino sottomaestro di casa che pagasse scudi viii al Bronzino e un'altra che pagasse scudi 6 al Baiacca

scudi 14

A d d ì xvii di giugno . . . Feci una poliza a . . . Messer Frane. 0 Pretino sottomaestro di casa di S. Ex. a che pagasse al Bronzino pittore scudi viii et al Baiacca scudi 6

scudi 14

f. i 3 r A d d ì xv di luglio

Feci una poliza al Pretino sottomaestro di casa che pagasse al Baiacca

[1542].

pittore fiorini 6 et al Bronzino fiorini viii f.

scudi 14

14V

A d d ì v detto [August

1542].

Si fece una poliza a Messer Frane. 0 Pretino sottomaestro di casa

a

di S. Ex. che pagasse al Baiacca scudi 6 et al Bronzino scudi otto a conto di loro pictura scudi 14 f. i6r A d d ì detto [26 A u g u s t 1542] feci una poliza al Pretino che pagasse al Baiacca fiorini 6 et al Bronzino fiorini viii. f. i 7 r Addì

16

di Septembre

[1542].

Feci una poliza al Pretino che pagasse al Bronzino fiorini viii e

[1542].

Feci una poliza al Pretino che pagasse al Bronzino pittore scudi

al Baiacca fiorini 6. f. ¡9r A d d ì xxii di dicembre

viii [di] moneta e al Baiacca scudi vi a loro conto. f. 20V

A d d ì xix G e n n a i o

[1543].

Feci una poliza al Pretino che pagasse scudi sei al Bronzino et scudi

4 al Baiacca.

Doc. 2 LETTER

FROM

AGNOLO

MARZI

DE' M E D I C I

I N P I S A TO B A C C I O

9 NOVEMBER

BANDINELLI

IN

FLORENCE,

1542.

B N F , Bandinelli 6 (Libro di Lettere e Suppliche), f. 84r Mag. c o S.r Cavalieri Risponderò alla Signoria Vostra quanto Sua Ecc. 1 "' ha resoluto sopra la lettera che ella mi ha scritto. E t prima per conto della pittura della cappella di Sua Illustrissima Signora Consorte, gl'è

APPENDIX

OF

328

DOCUMENTS

sodisfatto lo avvertire ne ha Vostra Signoria fatto. Del venir a portare qua quel suo disegno della facciata, non vuole che la perda altrimenti questo tempo per essere massime dolorose strade, ma che la attenda a' lavori come lei sa. Al far la guardarobba dove lei ne dice, ci andrà pensando S. Ecc."" et ne risolverà secondo conoscerà essere bene. Desidera pur assai che lei lavori, seguiti et attenda come li commisse a lavorare sul sepulcro et non sopra le statue, che a quelle non mancherà poi tempo. Quanto a' conti, che è poca fatica a saldarli vedendosi quel che Vostra Signoria ha sino adesso condotto al fine. Altro non ho che offerirmeli quanto posso. Di Pisa li 9 di novembre 1542. [by a different hand] Di Vostra Signoria Molto Magnifica Martio vescovo di Marsico [on verso] Al Mag. co S.or Cavallieri Bandinello mio Honorando Firenze

Doc. 3 LETTER

FROM

COSIMO

DE' M E D I C I 20

IN P I S A

TO B A C C I O

NOVEMBER

BANDINELLI

IN

FLORENCE,

1542.

B N F , Bandinelli 6 (Libro di Lettere e Suppliche), f. 99r S.r Cavalieri charissimo Haviamo visto le vostre de' 12, in risposta delle quali vi si dice che'l disegno della Pietà piace alla S r a nostra Consorte, e per farlo mettere in opera, come merita in vero l'opera et fatica vostra, s'ordinerà al Bronzino che la dipinga lui et obbedisca voi in questo per quanto sia di bisogno. Circa al quietarvi l'animo per meglio attendere al sepolchro, questo non lo può fare se non nostro S.rc Dio, quale con una parola anzi con una inspiratione et fiato divino può consolare altrui. Però a questo non sappiamo dirvi altro se non exhortarvi al seguitare a lavorare sul sepolchro, et di quello s'espetterà a noi et saremo tenuti non ne semo per mancarne. Possete, come scrivete, smurare dove s'ha da collocare decto sepulcro; et delle pietre miste da voi domandate, quando sarà tempo non vi se ne mancherà per li bisogni di tal opera. Et acciò vediate per esperientia che vi vogliamo bene e tenere per quanto si può l'animo quieto, s'ordina per l'alligata a Pierfrancesco de' Ricci non vi dia molestia per la gabella della casa da voi compra. Quanto al corridor de' balaustri, non stando voi in un fermo proposito, non haviamo a dirvi altro se non che le cose che, oltre a molto tempo et denari ci si getton via di superchio, recono alla fine poco honore a voi et a noi [added by another hand] né lo comporta la virtù vostra così chiara. La resolutione del corridore secreto può espettare la ritornata nostra costà, però ci risolveremo per allhora a quello ci parrà da farci dentro. Di Pisa li 20 di novembre 1542 E1 Duca di Fiorenza [on verso] . . . m o S.r Cavallie . . .

APPENDIX

OF

32 9

DOCUMENTS

Doc. 4 P A Y M E N T S TO B R O N Z I N O , 2 6 M A Y

AND 7 JULY

1543.

A S F , M e d i c e o del Principato 600 f.

25

r

E a d d ì 26 [May 1543] che pagasse scudi x al B r o n z i n o pittore per m a n d a t o di S . E x f f.

scudi 10

25V

E a d d ì vii di L u g l i o [1543] che pagasse al B r o n z i n o pittore scudi 30 d'oro moneta per ordine di S. Ex. a

scudi 30

Doc. 5 P A Y M E N T S TO B R O N Z I N O ,

16 OCTOBER

1544

TO 5 J A N U A R Y

1545.

A S F , Depositeria generale 573 (debitori e creditori, 1543-50) f. 131, sinistra [debit side] A g n o l o di C o s i m o detto B r o n z i n o dipintore de' dare addì X V I d ' O t t o b r e 1544 F i o r i n i cinq u a n t a di moneta hauti in più partite al q u a d e r n o di cassa di Francesco Ruberti a car. 141, d'ordine di Sua Ex. t l a ; a Uscita a car. 95, p a g ò detto Francesco; havere car. 130

Fior. 50

E addì V di g e n n a i o [1545] Fiorini dieci di moneta fatti buoni a Messer Pierfrancesco Ricci Secretario per tanti fattili contare a G i r o l a m o Migl[i]orotti a b u o n conto dalla sua entrata pagon a z z a segnata * a car. 69; havere in questo car. 182

Fior. 10

E d e ' dare F i o r i n i quaranta di moneta assegnatoci di tanti per debitore dal libro giallo dello Scrittoio di Sua Ex. t , a segnato F car. 70, per tanti hautine da ddì V I I di lugl[i]o a d d ì X I I di d i c e m b r e 1543 in 1111 partite; havere detto libro in questo car. 96

Fior. 40

E d e ' dare Fior, trenta di moneta assegnatoci di tanti per debitore dal libro rosso segnato D dello Scrittoio per tanti hautine sino X V I I I I d'ottobre 1542; havere detto libro, car. 104 Fior. 30 f. 131, destra [credit side] A g n o l o di C o s i m o detto B r o n z i n o pittore di contro de' havere Fiorini centotrenta di m o n e t a assegnato di tanti per debitore al libro verde segnato H dello Scrittoio di Sua Ecc. tla a car. 103 per resto et saldo di questo conto; dare detto libro in questo car. 193

APPENDIX

OF

33°

DOCUMENTS

Fior. 130

Doc. 6 PAYMENTS

TO B R O N Z I N O

FROM

IO J A N U A R Y

TO

II

NOVEMBER

1545.

A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 10 (1544—1553), f. 37 sinistra Bronzino pittore de' dare addì X di giennaio [1545] fiorini X d'oro moneta, portò contanti per mano di G i r o l a m o Migliorotti; a uscita c. 69; posto el mayordomo di S. E. tla avere in questo, c. 35

R l . . , ° E addì 16 di luglio [1545] fiorini X X d'oro moneta, contanti a suo conto per ordine di S. Ex. tla ,

come per lettera; a uscita, c. 82; posto avere el mayordomo in questo, c. 47

F. 20

E addì X I I I I di settembre fiorini 100 d'oro di moneta contanti a suo conto per le mani di Lattanzio G h o r i n i ; a uscita c. 9 1 ; posto avere el mayordomo in questo, c. 60

F. 100

E addì X I di novembre fiorini X X V d'oro di moneta per mano di Tanay de' Medici nostro giovane, a conto di fiorini X l P / i il mese c o m i n c i a t o addì primo di detto, a buon conto; a uscita, c. 99; posto el mayordomo avere in questo, c. 65

F. 25

T h e following chart summarizes the payments to Bronzino for the chapel frescoes and altarpiece in the three different account books in which they occur:

Depositeria generale 575 (doc. 5)

Mediceo del Principato 600 (docs. 1, 4) A p r . 29, 1542

scudi 8

[May] June 3

scudi 8

June 1 7

scudi 8

July 15

scudi 8

Aug.5

scudi 8

A u g . 26

scudi 8

Sept. 16

scudi 8

[Oct.]

Oct. 19, 1542

scudi 30

[Nov.] Dee. 22

scudi 8

Jan. 19, 1543

scudi 6

[Feb.] ? Mar. 23 (muraglia et altro) ? Apr. 4 (muraglia e pittori) May 26

scudi 10

[June] July 7

scudi 30

July 7> r 5 4 3 [Aug.] Sept. [Oct.] [Nov.]

APPENDIX

OF

33

DOCUMENTS 1

fiorini 40 (in 4 installments)

[Dec. 12] [Jan. 1544] [Feb.] [Mar.] [Apr.] May

fiorini 50 (in many installments)

[June] [Julyl [ Aug.] [Sept.] [Oct. 16] [Nov.]

Guardaroba io (docs. 7, 8)

[Dec.] Jan. 5, 1545

fiorini 10

Jan. 10, 1545

fiorini

10

[Feb.] [Mar.] [Apr.] [May] [June] fiorini 20

July 16 [Aug.]

fiorini 100 (8 mos. at fiorini 12)

Sept. 14 [Oct.]

fiorini 25 (in 2 installments for tapestry designs)

Nov. 1 1

Doc. 7 PAYMENT

TO M A R I O T T O

DI F R A N C E S C O

METTIDORO

B R O N Z I N O ' S LAMENTATION,

FOR T H E G I L D I N G OF T H E F R A M E 16

JULY

OF

1545.2

A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 10, f. 4 Spese per conto di S. Ex. tla Ill. ma deono dare . . . Et addì 16 detto [July 1545] fiorini 6 d'oro moneta per Sua Ex. t,a a Mariotto dipintore per doratura del'ornamento della tavola della Cappella della Duchessa, contanti; a uscita, c. 82, posto avere il Mayordomo in questo, c. 47 Fior. 6 l i r e —

APPENDIX

OF

332

DOCUMENTS

Doc. 8 LETTER

FROM BRONZINO

IN P O G G I O

A CAIANO 9 AUGUST

TO PIERFRANCESCO

RICCIO

IN

FLORENCE,

1545.3

A S F , M e d i c e o del Principato 1 1 7 0 A , fase. I, ins. II Ibis, f. 36 Molto R. do S.r m i o osser. mo H o riceuto l'azurro m a n d a t o m i dalla S. V., il quale invero non è tanto a un p e z z o , et è tanto poco che non credo sia dua danari. Pertanto V. S. sia contenta, non vi essendo più di quella sorte medesima, m e ne m a n d i di quello che può, tanto che sia almeno mez'oncia, perchè non credo poter fare con manco, perché il c a m p o è grande et ha ad essere scuro, tal ch'io son certo che non ne bisogna manco. V. S. a d u n q u e si degni vedere tra quello che venne costì ultimamente di qui del migl[i]ore, cioè del più bello, et me ne mandi quel tanto ch'io chieggo, perchè non s'ha adoperare per altri che per S. Ex. t!a I nostri A n g e l i stanno tutti benissimo, et gli adoriamo, parendoci che Iddio ci dia più che h u m a n a gratia a poterlo fare, et chosì Iddio sempre a V. S. et a noi gli conservi felici, come speriamo, sì Iddio ha cura de' buoni e giusti Signori, come si vede che ha. Circa le campane, vi confesso che m ' h a n n o non manco infastidito scrivendone, che costì mi facessino udendole, tanto che non so quel ch'io mi farò di loro, pure me le sono levate dinanzi. D u o l m i del nostro Barlacchi, Iddio l'aiuti, ché in verità ne sarebbe danno grandissimo, perché oltre all'essere h u o m o facetissimo et amorevole, era buona persona et fedelissimo servitore della celeste Casa de' Medici, et certo non s'ara un simile a fretta; pure Iddio disponga il megl[i]o. A l t r o per hora non mi occorre, salvo ricordare a V. S. che io desidero che quella mi comandi, perchè mi parebbe, q u a n d o quella lo facessi, essere da qualcosa. Et senza più dire, bacio le mani alla V. S. R. da , p r e g a n d o nostro S.re Iddio che quella contenti et conservi. D a l P o g g i o alli V i l l i d ' A g o s t o del X L V , per il di V. S. R.da Servitore Il B r o n z i n o pittore [address] A l molto R. do S.re il Signor M a i o r d o m o di sua Ex. t,a in F i r e n z e

Doc. 9 LETTER

FROM LORENZO

PAGNI

IN P O G G I O A C A I A N O T O P I E R F R A N C E S C O R I C C I O

FLORENCE,

12 AUGUST

IN

1545.4

A S F , M e d i c e o del Principato 1169, ins. I X , f. 1 Molto R. do S.or mio osser. mo L e dua di V. S. r,a de' X I son comparse, l'una hiersera col spaccio del Selvastrella, l'altra stamani con le aggiunte, et al contenuto di esse non mi occorre replicare altro. L e dirò ben per ordine di

APPENDIX

OF

333

DOCUMENTS

Sua Ecc. 3 che la vuole che V. S. faccia intendere all'Ingegneri Camerino [Giovanni Camerini] che si metta in ordine per andare a Besanzon in Borgogna, dove per servitio di Mons. r di G r a n Vela ha d'haver carico di far desiccare certi pantani in alcuni suoi luoghi, per la qual andata la S. V. lo ha a provedere per tre o quattro mesi o più che potesse star là, di quanto haverà bisogno. Faccendoli expressamente intendere che da Mons r di G r a n Vela predetto né da alcun altro non ha havere salario o mercede alcuna, et se non quella li darà Sua Ecc. a , perchè così è la mente sua. Di più la S. V. ha da fare usare ogni diligentia per far fornire lo adornamento del quadro che fece il Bronzino, qual è nel'oratorio della Duchessa nostra Signora, qual s'ha da mandare a detto Monsignor di G r a n Vela a detto luogo di Besanzon, per una sua Cappella che nuovamente ha fatto fare. Inoltre vuole Sua Ecc. a che la S. V. con ogni prestezza possibile faccia fare fin a quaranta fìasconi di vetro grosso, di tenuta di fiaschi cinque l'uno, per mettervi drento dieci some di greco, se tanto ne è in cantina di Sua Ecc.", per mandarlo a Bruxelles a detto Mons. r di G r a n Vela che lo domanda, et in questo massime non vuol Sua Ecc." si perda punto di tempo. L a S. V. darà ancora al Guiduccio (ché così Sua Ecc. a comanda) del greco et vin rosso, che li domanderà per il R. m o Cardinale Cybo, con li quali vini la gli farà dare ancora quattro vasselletti di zucchero rosato, che li darà per ordine di mia S.ra la Duchessa, Donna Isabella Figueroa, et offerirà a detto abate ogni altra cosa che li S.rl nostri possine, per satisfattione et piacimento del prefato R. m o , ché così comandano. L a S. V. comandi al Grasso che ci mandi della carta, perchè siamo senza; et io non ho altro che dire se non che me li raccomando. D a l Poggio, alli X I I di ogosto 1545. DI

V. S. R. da

Servitor L o r e n z o Pagni [on verso] A l molto R. do S.or mio osser. mo Messer Pier Francesco Riccio Maiordomo di Sua Ecc. a a Fiorenza

Doc. 10 LETTER

FROM PIERFRANCESCO

CAIANO,

12

AUGUST

RICCIO

1545,

I N F L O R E N C E TO C O S I M O DE' M E D I C I

I N A N S W E R TO L O R E N Z O P A G N I ' S

IN POGGIO A

L E T T E R (DOC.

9).5

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 373, f. 505r-v Molto Mag. c o S.r mio L'ingegneri Camerino, a cui ho parlato sopra la gita sua in Borgogna a Besanzon, è parato a far quanto S. Ex. a gli comanda. E t però siamo restati d'essere di novo insieme per vedere quel che gli faccia di bisogno per tal gita et stanza, et subito sarà a cavallo. L'adornamento per la tavola della cappella della duchessa nostra Signora si lavora et si fa con sollecitudine, et hora di novo si rinfrescherà l'opera diligente, adeiò con prestezza habbia la perfectione. L i quaranta fìasconi di vetro grosso, di tenuta cinque fiaschi l'uno, saranno in ordine tra doi

APPENDIX

OF

334

DOCUMENTS

dì, ché non si hanno se non da vestire, havendo hauto sorte di trovargli facti. Ma adverta la S. V. che tanti fiaschi sono some cinque et non dieci come dice la S. V. per la sua lettera, imperò gl[i]e n'ho voluto dire una parola. O r d i n e r ò anche le casse dove dentro debbono andare detti

fiasconi,

et cercherò de' vetturali che gli portino. Intanto S. Ex. a comanderà quel che si ha da fare. T e n g o li 4 vasetti di zuchero rosato per consegnarlo al Guiduccio, così come a ogni suo com a n d o gli darò il greco et il rosso per il R. mo Cibo. A l Grasso ho detto della carta. C o n la presente io m a n d o a V. S. una di mess. Donato de' Bardi, un pieghetto di Siena et molt'altre lettere, c o m e V. S. vedrà per deto loro ricapito. Tutti 3 questi Ill. m ' stanno bene. D i o guardi tutta la casa Ill. ma , et a V. S. me raccomando, che N o s t r o S.re D i o la contenti. D i Firenze, el dì X I I di A g o s t o 1545. Lessi la carta del Vescovo di C o r t o n a a tutti questi Sig." et non ci hanno detto su cosa alcuna et baciano le mani di S. Ex. a D i V. S. Servitor Pierfrancesco Riccio [f.

527V;

address]

A l molto Mag. c o S.r m i o Messer L o r e n z o Pagni Secretario di S. Ex. a

Doc. 11 LETTER

FROM COSIMO

DE' M E D I C I

IN P O G G I O A C A I A N O T O D O N

BRUSSELS,

12 AUGUST

F R A N C E S C O DI T O L E D O

IN

1545.

A S F , M e d i c e o del Principato 6, ff. i ó o r - i ó j r [In a long letter devoted to diplomane affairs there is the following passage on ff. i62v-iÓ3r:] A D o n Francesco di Toledo alla corte Cesarea adì 12 d'agosto 1545 dal Poggio. . . . O g g i medesimo ho dato ordine di inviar alla volta di Burselles un mio architetto d'acque, sì come la S. V. mi ricercava, per servitio di Mons. r di Granvella, et farà capo a lei. C e ne sono dua altri che, per essere molto vecchi et per la età impotenti al c a m m i n o che è pur longo, non si mandano. M a n d e r ò anco a S. S. r,a otto o dieci some di greco in fiaschi grandi et di vetro grosso, di tenuta di cinque fiaschi ordinarii l'uno, adeiò si conduca ben conditionato, et non mancherò di mandare anco la tavola dell'altare della Cappella della Duchessa, di m a n o del Bronzino, che è pictore exceliente, et si attende a farli il suo fornimento, quale spedito, si invierà subito a cotesta volta. Et se a S. S.ria aggrada altra cosa da queste bande, piacciali farmelo intendere, che mi reputerò a grada et favore grandissimo di fare qualsivogli cosa che sia grata a S. S.r,a

APPENDIX

OF

335

DOCUMENTS

Doc. 12 LETTER

FROM

LORENZO

PAGNI

IN POGGIO A C A I A N O

FLORENCE,

13

AUGUST

TO P I E R F R A N C E S C O

RICCIO

IN

1545.''

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 1 1 6 9 , ins. I X , f. 2 Molto R.DO S.or mio oss. mo H o riferito a S. Ecc. a l'ordine che la S. V. haveva dato per la partita di Camerino architetto, et m'ha decto che s'ha a mandare a Bruselles in Fiandra et non a Besenzon in Borgogna, perchè quivi il S.or D o n Francesco di Toledo, al quale egli ha a far capo, l'ha a presentare a Mons. r di G r a n Vela da parte di S. Ecc. a , et vuole che si parta quanto prima sarà possibile. 10 intesi bene da S. Ecc. a della quantità delle some che voleva mandar di vino greco, et così anco de' fiaschi, ma le seppi mal referire alla S. V., et non se ne maravigli che li do mia fè che questa volta posso dire come diceva spesso Mons. r d'Altopasso, che sono annegato nelle faccende, dallo arrivo del Selvastrella in qua. Per hora s'hanno a mandar li 40 fiasconi, et un'altra volta il resto sino in X some, se tanto greco è in la cantina di S. Ecc. 3 H a hauto piacere l'Ecc. a S. che si solliciti lo abbigl[i]amento di quella tavola, perchè desidera di mandarla presto, come anco il greco. 11 zucchero rosato et il greco et il latino per il Cardinal Cibo, V. S. lo ha a consegnare all'Abate Guiduccio, con le qui aggiunte. Per virtù di messer A g n o l o Divitii qui ci troviamo senza un foglio di carta da scrivere, et quel che peggio è, senza registro, et certo lui, che ha la cura di queste cose, non doverebbe ridursi a tanto estremo. Supplico a V. S. facci mandar qua un registro foraneo et carta, spago et cera senza dilatione di tempo, che me ne vergogno et ho paura di non haver rossore di questa sua stracurataggine. L a lettera di Venetia si rimanda per farla vedere a cotesti S r l del Consiglio. S. Ecc. a havendo lecto la carta di V. S. directiva in la sua propria mano, m'ha comandato li scriva che non sa quando li tornerà bene di venire a Firenze a fare l'exequie della Principessa di Spagna, ma che sarà quando si troverrà vestita a bruno un giorno a suo commodo, per non star costì se non il giorno che si faranno decte exequie. Però vuole che la S. V. facci tener a ordine tutto quello bisogna per decte exequie, adciò venendo possa far lo effecto senza dilatione et partirsi a commodo suo. Va con questa un dispaccio per l'Ambasciator di Roma, quale V. S. ha a inviar subito a quella volta con corriero espresso, et pagarlo per andar et per tornare. Ci sarà un altro dispaccio per Augusta a Mons. r di Cortona, dentro il quale vanno lettere per D o n Francesco di Toledo per la Corte Cesarea. Però la S. V. ha a far spedire decto dispaccio per staffetta expressa, non solo sino in Augusta, faccendolo dirizare al maestro delle poste di quella città, ma ancora sino alla Corte. Però potrà ordinarne la exegutione in buona forma a messer H i e r o n i m o di ser Iacopo nel modo detto. Io sarò costì stasera o domattina per andarmene a Siena, et allo arrivo mio darò conto alla S. V. di tutto quello che accade. Intanto li bacio le mani et la prego facci dar ricapito a tutte le alligate. D a l Poggio li X I I I d'ogosto 1545. Il s.or Campana si raccomanda alla S. V. D I V . R.DA

S.

APPENDIX

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336

DOCUMENTS

Il pieghetto che va con questa per Alexandre del Caccia, V. S. ha a inviarcelo per cavallaro a posta

Servitor Lorenzo Pagni [on verso; address] A l molto R. d " S.or mio oss. mo il S.or Maiordomo magior di S. Ecc. 3 a Firenze

Doc. 13 LETTER

FROM

BRONZINO

IN P O G G I O A C A I A N O TO P I E R F R A N C E S C O AUGUST

RICCIO

IN F L O R E N C E ,

22

1545/

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 1 1 7 0 A , fase. I, ins. 11Ibis, f. 34 Molto R. do S. or mio osser. mo Ieri, che f u m o allí X X I del presente, fui con S. E . per cagione del Ritratto, dove dissi quanto per vostra S. mi fu imposto circa la speditione della tavola per in Fiandra, et come, volendo sua E . che se ne rifacessi un'altra, bisognava stare costì almanco otto o dieci giorni per farne un poco di disegno. Dissemi che così voleva et era contento, ma mi pare che S. E . si contenti che prima si fornisca il ritratto; et di più dice Sua E. che si faccia in questo mezzo fare il legname per dipignervi su detta tavola, et aggiunse sua prefata E.: "Io la vogl[i]o in quel modo proprio come sta quella, et non la vogl[i]o più bella" quasi dicesse: " N o n m'entrare in altra inventione, perchè quella mi piace." Per tanto V. S. R. da , quando li piacesse, potrebbe dire al Tasso che dessi ordine, o per dir megl[i]o facessi, perché così è l'intenzione di S. E., che mi disse: " F a ' far la tavola, et falla ingessare." So che il Tasso non mancherà della solita diligentia, che certo fece cotesta molto diligentemente, et così doverrà fare quest'altra. N è per ora m'occorre altro, salvo raccomandarmi a V. S. quanto posso, pregando quella che si degni alle volte comandarmi qualche cosa, et nostro Signore Iddio, che quella sempre in sua gratia et del nostro buon Patrone conservi: al quale sia per sempre contento et felicità. D a l Poggio alli X X I I d'Agosto del X L V per il di V. S. R. da

Servitore Il Bronzino Pittore [address] A l molto R. do S.rc Messer Pierfrancesco Riccio Maiordomo di Sua Ex. tla et suo sempre osser. mo a Firenze

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Doc. 14 LETTER

FROM C O S I M O DE' M E D I C I

I N P O G G I O A C A I A N O TO D O N

BRUSSELS,

19 SEPTEMBER

F R A N C E S C O DI T O L E D O

IN

1545.

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 6, ff. 242r-248v [In a long letter concerned with diplomatic and political matters, there is the following passage on f. 244r:] L o Architetto delle acque mandato a cotesta volta per servitio di Mons.r di Granvella, allo arrivo di questa doverrà esser comparso, così anco il vin greco con li marzolini; però non occorre dirne altro. Et la tavola della Cappella della Duchessa si invierà presto alla volta di Genova, et si consegnerà lì al commendator Figueroa, che la mandi più oltre al suo cammino.

Doc. 15 LETTER

F R O M P I E R F R A N C E S C O R I C C I O I N F L O R E N C E TO C H R I S T I A N O P A G N I I N P O G G I O A CAIANO,

14 SEPTEMBER

1549.

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 394, ff. 549r~55or Molto R. do S.r mio Tornandosene im poste costì il S.r Pardo, ho voluto far questo letterino a V. S., la quale intenda ch'el Signorino sta bene; et il S.r Iovio credo harà paura di questo tempo a venir da voi oggi, come n'haveva voglia. Intanto noi ci godereno il suo abbondantissimo ragionamento, et io lo vo traetenendo con mostrarli delle cose di S. Ex. In questa notte el tempo è stato qui così umido et con tanti tuoni et acque grossissime, che me hanno spaventato. Non s'è inteso, quando scrivo, ancora dove sieno cascate saette; m'è parso un bel guadagno che questa volta il cielo s'è degnato lasciare stare il nostro campanile. Prego Dio che tenga sana et felicissima S. E x ? et tutta sua Casa. Secondo l'ordine che lasciò la Duchessa nostra Signora a Maestro Tasso che si fabricassero le sue stanze sopra la camera verde, questa septimana s'è atteso a levare il vecchio tecto et palco, et questo temporale tanto terribile d'acqua ci ha hauto a far danno a detta camera verde, pur non si vede cosa che importi, et s'andrà pigliando qualche modo, che seguitando l'acque non possino nuocere. Sarebbe forse bene per ogni caso ch'io havesse le chiave della cappella del Bronzino et dello scriptoio di detta camera verde; imperò V. S. si degni dirne una parola alla Duchessa nostra S. ra , et piacendoli pigliar cura che io habbia quanto prima decte chiavi. Et alle loro Ecc." humilmente me raccomando et a V. S., che Dio le guardi. Di Firenze, il dì 14 di Settembre 1549. Di V. S. Servitor Pierfrancesco Riccio [ o n f. 5 5 0 V ]

A l molto R.DO Sig.r mio messer Christiano Pagni, Secretario di S. Ecc.a

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Doc. 16 LETTER

FROM PIERFRANCESCO

RICCIO

CAIANO,

IN F L O R E N C E 15

SEPTEMBER

TO C H R I S T I A N O

PAGNI

IN POGGIO

A

1549.

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 394, ff. 5 8 0 1 - 5 8 i r Molto R. do S.or mio Io ho due lettere di V. S., tutte due d'hieri. L a prima ricerca risposta in quella parte che tocca la provisione di Medoro, com'anche me ne scrive messer Lorenzo, che gl'ho mandati questa mattina per il procaccio scudi X I I I I d'oro in oro, et d'agosto passato gl[i]e ne mandai altri X , che messer Lorenzo non lo sapeva, ma me ne scripse o disse V. S. che così si facesse. Di maniera che al conto ne fa messer Lorenzo, con li scudi X detti Medoro vien pagato per tutto octobre, et di tanto più quanto saranno li aggi, se già non s'abbia a pagar la provisione sua a scudi d'oro. H o voluto toccare tutto questo per informatione di S. Ex. a . Per l'altra sua lettera intesi quanto S. Ecc.a comanda per conto delle poste, che ci starò vigilante, et nel vero la cosa istessa lo richiede per questo conto, et però scripsi di Pardo. Hebbi le due chiavi della cappella et dello scriptoio che non hanno punto patito dell'acqua. Se la Duchessa ne resta servita, io le terrò ancor 2 dì o 3, se per sorta bisognasse rivedere et advertire se piovesse. Intanto sopra la volta si fa un tecto posticcio per riparare a ogn'acqua che venisse, et s'attenderà a sollecitare l'opera adciò si tiri avanti che l'invernata ne assalga. L a S. V. harà veduto il S.or Iovio, che volse venire a cavallo, ma gli si dette una bona bestia. H o r tocca a voi a farli carezze, ch'io gli ho facte fare certe pappine in tazza che gli sono sodisfacte, dicolo per informatione, et a S. S.rla me raccomando. Maestro Andrea sta meglio. Il Signorino sta bene. L e Sigf a Castello, che le visitai questa mattina di grand'hora, stanno bene; et voi costà state bene, che Dio ne sia ringratiato. Io hebbi i doi conti della fabrica della saetta, da Luca Martini che gli teneva. Hor Hieronimo Ciacchi mi sprona che gli sieno facti buoni o per scriptura alla magona del ferro o in contanti li resti di decti conti, et mi dice che n'ha parlato con S. Ex. a , et parmi dica che la se ne contenti. Il resto è circa scudi 1 1 0 0 d'oro. A V. S. mi raccomando, che Dio la contenti. Di Firenze, il dì X V di Settembre 1549. Di V. S. Servitor Pierfrancesco Riccio A l molto R. do S.r mio messer Christiano Pagni secretarlo di S. Ex. a

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Doc. L E T T E R FROM SFORZA A L M E N I

I J

I N L I V O R N O TO P I E R F R A N C E S C O R I C C I O I N

FLORENCE,

8 APRIL 1550.8

A S F , Mediceo del Principato 1 1 7 6 , ins. I, f. 6r Molto R d o S.or mio oss. mo L a duc[h]essa mia S.ra m'à detto che io scr[i]va a V. S. che quella facci fare dal Bronzino un cartone d'un panno d'altare in quel modo che stava quella del suo oratorio con quelle medesime figure, con un festone atorno che sia bello, el qual disegna mandarlo in Ispagna. E perché dubita non torni picolo, vorrebbe la mesura d'ogni cosa, c[i]oè quanto tornerà grande aggiungendoci el festone. V. S. lo potrà mandare. E questo è quanto al panno mi resta in risposta d'una di V. S. a dirle, che mai non penso né penserò che V. S. m'abi se no[n] da fav[o]ri[r]e e aiutare, e quello che me lo fa più cognos[c]iere è e fatti che vego ogni g[i]orno el verso di me. Ma mi du[o]le bene che le mia forze son tante debole, che non potrò mai mostrare a V. S. el disiderio che io tengo nel quor di servirla. N o n posendo, V. S. acetti la bu[o]na voluntà e comandimi qualc[h]e volta. E patroni stanno tuti bene. Di Li[v]orno, alli 8 d'aprile 1550. D. V. S.

afetionato servitor Sforza A l m e n n i [on verso] A l molto R. do S.or mio il S.or M a i o r d o m o di Sua ecc. tia in Fiorenza

Doc. 18 RICORDO

ON T H E D E L I V E R Y OF GOLD S A T I N FOR AN A L T A R F R O N T A L FOR T H E C H A P E L

ELEONORA, 3 0 JUNE

OF

1550.9

A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 23, f. 37r A d d ì 30 decto [June 1550] X ' A braccia di raso d'oro, da Piero Arrigucci, messo in una fodera d'un paliotto d'altare di rethe di refe, lavorate per la cappella della Duchessa, consegnato a Ulivo banderaio

APPENDIX

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br. 1 0 %

Doc. ig RICORDO

ON T H E D E L I V E R Y

ELEONORA, 26

MARCH

1553;

OF

ALTAR F U R N I S H I N G S

RICORDO

AND V E S T M E N T S

ON T H E D E L I V E R Y

FOR T H E S E C O N D A L T A R P I E C E OF

THE C H A P E L

OF

OF

FOR T H E C H A P E L

ULTRAMARINE

ELEONORA, 26

B L U E TO

SEPTEMBER

OF

BRONZINO 1553-

A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 27

f

-49v A d d ì X X V I di decto [March 1 5 5 3 ] X I I 1 1 % braccia di velluto tanè da Niccolò Puccini, per lire X I I braccio, messo in uno dossello d'altare, una pianeta, stola, manipulo et brusci a uno camisce [càmice], con ordine della Sig. ra Duchessa nostra per la sua cappella; tagliò Ulivo bandieraio

braccia 14VÌ

X V i l l i braccia di tela nera di Venetia, da Bastiano di Dino, consegnata al decto, per fodera di braccia

decte

:

9

UVA braccia di teletta nera con opera, cioè uno de'teli del stanzino della Duchessa, consegnato al decto, per el fregio di decta pianeta et dossello

braccia 3'A

f.65r A d d ì X X V I di decto [September 1 5 5 3 ] I I oncie d'azzurro oltramarino consegnato a Maestro Bronzino pittore, disse per la tavola della Cappella della Duchessa con ordine di Sua E x ?

Oncie 2

Doc. 20 ST.

JOHN

THE

BAPTIST

AND F U R N I S H I N G S

A N D ST.

COSMAS

FROM THE CHAPEL GUARDAROBA,

27

BY BRONZINO;

PIETÀ

OF

IN AN I N V E N T O R Y

ELEONORA

OcTOBER

ALTAR TAPESTRY

TO 7 N O V E M B E R

BY

OF T H E

SALVIATI; MEDICI

I553."

A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 28

f. 3or [Nella prima stanza della Guardaroba secreta . . . 3 November 1553] U n o San Cosimo pitto in sul legname, di mano del Bronzino. U n o San Giovan Batista pitto in sul legname, di mano del Bronzino. f- 3 7 r

.

[5 N o v e m b e r ] U n o panno d'altare, drentovi una Pietà, d'oro, argento et seta, di braccia 3'A et 3'A, di mano di M.° Niccolass, foderato di tela azzurra, f. 44 [7 N o v e m b e r 1 5 5 3 . . . N e l tredicesimo armadio della Guardaroba segreta], 6 Apostoli d'argento per l'altare della S.ra Duchessa, di libre 1 2 1 , oncie 2. U n pace d'argento dorato con la Natività di christallo, di libre 3, oncie — , denari 12, con ornamento atorno di lapislazeri. U n o lampanaio per la cappella, d'argento, di libbre 3, oncie 1 1 .

APPENDIX

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Doc. 21 PIETÀ

ALTAR TAPESTRY

BY SALVIATI;

IN AN INVENTORY

OF

ST.

JOHN

THE

THE MEDICI

BAPTIST

A N D ST.

GUARDAROBA,

I

COSMAS

JULY

BY

BRONZINO

1560. 12

A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 45 f.28r U n pannetto per la Cappella, d'oro et d'argento et seta, chor una Pietà di braccia 3 % , quadro foderato di tela azurra. f.

59r

D u a quadri compagni, dentrovi in uno S.to Cosimo et nel'altro S.to Giovanbatista, di man del Bronzino, sanza ornamento.

Doc. 22 PAYMENT

TO T O M A S O

DI F R A N C E S C O CHAPEL

OF

F O R W O O D F O R B R O N Z I N O ' S ANNUNCIATION ELEONORA,

19

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FOR

THE

1563. 1 3

A S F , Fabbriche Medicee 10, f. 24 v M D L X I I I . Sabato addì 19 di giugno. A spese per la muraglia del palazo duchale: . . . e lire 2.3 — a Tomaso di Francesco segatore per segatura di braccia 14/2 d'asse di noce a soldi 3 braccio, per farne addornamenti e una tavola per uno altare nella Cappella in C a m e r a Verde . . .

Doc. 23 PAYMENT

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OF T H E C H A P E L

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3

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1563.' 4

A S F , Fabbriche Medicee 10, f. 27r M . D . L X I I I , Sabato addì 3 di luglio . . . A spese di più sorte fiorini sei di moneta, lire una, soldi vi, danari viii piccioli, e per dette a' frati degl'Ingiesuati, portò fra' Buonaventura vicario contanti, per valuta di braccia 4V } d'una finestra invetriata di vetri bianchi, fatta per la Cappella acchanto alla C a m e r a Verde, per lire 10 el braccio, come in detta poliza

Fior. 6 L . 1 s. 6 d. 8.

Doc. 24 LETTER

FROM

BRONZINO

IN F L O R E N C E

TO C O S I M O

DE' M E D I C I ,

15

APRIL

1564

(FIG.

45)."

N e w York, Pierpont Morgan Library 1 3 4 6 - 4 7 Ill m o et E c c m o S o r D u c a S o r c e Padron mio oss m o ecc C o n ogni mio maggiore affetto, e debita gratitudine, e quanto io pos[so] il più, ringrazio vostra infinita cortesia, e larghissima liberalità, dell'havermi fatto pagare li danari di quel salario, che la

APPENDIX

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DOCUMENTS 2

bontà, e amorevolezza vostra più tempo fa mi bordino, del quale sono stato al tutto pagato cagione, che per la di voi grazia, e magnificenzia, io doverrò per al presente, por fine a tutti li miei affanni, e tanto più mi è grato, e di profitto, uno cosi generoso atto di V. E . Ill. ma , quanto io l'ho veduto distendere in più, e cosi universale è, che io veggo, e sento il suo glorioso nome alzarsi con infinite lodi al cielo, e porgere infinitissimi preghi à D i o per ogni sua esaltazione, e felicità, fra li quali io quasi per dolcezza, e stupore lagrimando, non sono già stato l'ultimo à mescolare i miei certissimo, che se D i o ama il bene, e la carità, come si sà per prova, saranno esauditi; e se bene il Cavaliere S o r Tommaso de Medici mi ha detto, che tal salario non mi corre più, non è però, che 10 none speri, che quando à V. E . I. verrà occasione di servirsi di quel poco, che io vaglio, ella non mi riponga nel numero de suoi Fedeli, e mi riapra la porta della sua santissima Casa la quale io m'era promesso, che mentre ch'io vivo non me s'havesse à chiudere già mai, et la qual cosa io desidero più che la vita, e in tanto non manco di seguitare la Tavola de Cavalieri, e dar fine à quel tanto che manca nella Cappella di Palazzo, le quali cose credo che V. E . I.troverra al suo ritorno fornite, e me non meno desideroso, e pronto à servirla, e adorarla, che mai: et alla quale io prego 11 n[ost]ro Signore Iddio, che dia ogni bene e felicità, e con ogni mia debita reverenza à piedi di quella inginocchiato bacio la veste di Fiorenza alli X V d'Aprile del lxiiii per il di V. E . Ill. ma

humilmo e devmo sfervitojre Il Bronzino Pittore

Doc. 25 PAYMENT

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ELEONORA,

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B R O N Z I N O ' S ANNUNCIATION

JULY

IN

THE

1564."'

A S F , Fabbriche Medicee 10, f. 66v M D L X I I I I Sabato addì 15 detto [July] . . . A spese per la muraglia del palazo duchale . . . e lire 3 . 1 0 — a Dionigi di Matteo legnaiuolo, per 2 addornamenti fatti per la Cappella della C a mera Verde, a una Nuntiata e a uno Angelo, come in detta poliza.

Doc. 26 PAYMENT

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ELEONORA,

THE 16

F R A M E S OF

SEPTEMBER

BRONZINO'S

1564.

A S F , Fabbriche Medicee 10, f. M D L X I I I I . Sabato addì 16 di settembre. A spese per la muraglia del palazo duchale . . . e lire 4 é I 6 — piccioli pagati a Taddeo di Francesco battiloro per valuta di 120 pezi d'oro per mettere d'oro 2 ornamenti nella Cappella in C a m e r a Verde d'una Nostra Donna e d'uno Angelo, come nella poliza di n° 195.

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Doc. 27 PAYMENT

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ELEONORA,

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I565.17

A S F , Fabbriche Medicee 10, f. gir [ 1 7 F e b r u a r y 1 5 6 5 ] A spese di pittori e loro pertinenze, per in Palazo D u c h a l e . . . e per spese fatte el B r o n z i n o pittore nel rassettare la cappella ch'è nella C a m e r a Verde, in diverse spese come in detta poliza, lire 1 1 . 1 4 : in tutto

f. 6 L . 5 s. 4

Doc. 28 ST.

JOHN

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BY BRONZINO

IN AN I N V E N T O R Y

OF T H E

MEDICI

19 JtJNE I574.

GUARDAROBA,

A S F , G u a r d a r o b a Medicea 87, f. 68v N e l l a stanza P r i m a principale della G u a r d a r o b a dove è la Mostra, per quale si passa alla stanza dell'horologio. A d ì 19 di G i u g n o 1574 . . . Ritratti dua, di S.to Giovanni et S. to C o s i m o aovati n° 2

Doc. 29 PAYMENT

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F O R T H E DOOR T O

1.5 O C T O B E R

THE

1582."

A S F , Fabbriche Medicee 1 1 , entrata e uscita G , 1 5 7 3 - 8 5 , f. i3Ór [ 1 5 October 1 5 8 2 ] A spese dette [per la fabrica del palazzo duchale] lire tre piccioli, pagati a Santi di D o m e n i c o ottonaio, portò contanti, per valuta di uno paio di palle d'ottone, grande, servite all'uscio della Capella che va sul terrazzino della G r a n Duchessa, come per detta listra f . _ L . 3 -

Doc. 30 ST.

JOHN

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1609.

A S F , G u a r d a r o b a Medicea 289, f. 1 1 1 v N e l l a prima stanza della guardaroba detta la mostra . . . 2 quadri in tavola alti braccia 3 in circa e larghi braccia 1 , drentovi uno San Giovanni e uno San Cosimo, tondi di sopra, con ornamenti dorati

n° 2

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Doc. 31 B R O N Z I N O ' S LAMENTATION

A N D ANNUNCIATION

I N V E N T O R I E D ON T H E I R T R A N S F E R T O

UFFIZI, 28 JUNE

THE

1771.

Galleria degli U f f ì z i , Archivio, 1 7 7 1 A , I I I , ins. 27, f. i6v (Inventario de' quadri . . . sono passati alla Real Galleria in vigore di Rescritto de' 22 X b r e 1770), 5045. U n quadro d'Altare in tavola del Bronzino centinaio di sopra alto nel più braccia 4/3 largo braccia 3, dipintovi la Deposizione di Nostro Signore dalla Croce, in braccio alla Madonna santissima, e diversi altri santi, che lo sostengono, e al di sopra angeli avante ciascuno di sopra, alcuni segni della passione, con ornamento tutto intagliato, e dorato. Inventario vegliante a carta 390. [Note to left:] Nota bene come alla tavola di contro vanno uniti due altri laterali, che rappresentano L ' A n g i o l o Gabriello e la Sant. ma Annunziata. L'ornamento rimandato in Guardaroba.

APPENDIX

OF

345

DOCUMENTS

ABBREVIATIONS

All.&Cec.

E. Allegri and A. Cecchi, Palazzo Vecchio e i Medici: Guida storica, Florence, 1980

ArtB

The Art Bulletin

ASF

Florence, Archivio di Stato

Bac.

E. Baccheschi, L'Opera completa del Bronzino, Milan, 1973

Bar.

A. Bartsch, Lepeintre graveur, 21 vols. Leipzig, 1854-76

BNF Buri. Cox-Rear.

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale The Burlington Magazine J. Cox-Rearick, Dynasty andDestiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X, and the Two Cosimos, Princeton, 1984

Giam.

P. F. Giambullari, Apparato et feste nelle noze dello Illustrissimo Signor Duca di Firenze, et della Duchessa sua consorte, con le sue stanze, madriali, comedia, et intermedii, in quelle recitati, Florence, 1539 (for trans., see Min.&Mit.)

JWCI

Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes

Lang.

K. Langedijk, The Portraits of the Medici: Fifteenth-Eighteenth Centuries, 3 vols., Florence, 1981-87

MDP Min.&Mit.

Mediceo del Principato A. C. Minor and B. Mitchell, A Renaissance Entertainment: Fes-

347

twities for the Marriage of Cosimo I, Duf$e of Florence, in 75^9, Columbia, Mo., 1968 (trans, of Giam.) MKIF Pal.Vec.

Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz Palazzo Vecchio: Committenza e collezionismo medicei, Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa del cinquecento, Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, 1980, ed. P. Barocchi, Florence, 1980

Vas.CdL

he vite de' più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori scritte da Giorgio Vasari pittore aretino (Florence, 1568), ed. P. della Pergola, L. Grassi, and G. Previtali, 9 vols., Milan, Club del Libro, 1962-66

Vas.Frey

Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, ed. K . Frey, 3 vols., Munich, 1923-40

Vas.Mil.

Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori scritte da Giorgio Vasari pittore aretino (Florence, 1568), in Opere, ed. G . Milanesi, 9 vols., Florence, 1878-85

Vas.-Rag.

IRagionamenti,

in Vas.Mil., V i l i , pp. 9-225

A B B R E V I A T I O N S

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. Vasari's chapter on artists who were members of the Florentine Accademia del Disegno is titled "Degl'Accademici del disegno: Pittori, scultori, ed architetti e dell'opere loro e prima del Bronzino." Vasari could have given Bronzino a separate chapter (other living artists, such as Titian, had their own vite) but may have refrained from doing so out of personal jealousy of his most significant rival in painting at the ducal court. For Vasari's praise of Bronzino, quoted in the epigraph of this introduction, see Vas.CdL, V I I I , p. 13 (Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 593). When citing Vasari, I refer to thè standard edition, edited by Gaetano Milanesi; because its text is corrupt, however, all quotations follow the Club del Libro edition, with the Milanesi reference given as well. 2. For Maniera and its literature, see Smyth, 1962; J. Shearman, "Maniera as an Aesthetic Ideal," in The Renaissance and Mannerism: Studies in Western Art. Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art, Princeton, 1963, II, pp. 220-21; Freedberg, 1965, pp. 1 8 7 91; and Shearman, 1967; (for the "stylish style," see p. 19). For the reaction against Maniera, see Hall, 1979, pp. 3 3 - 8 3 ("Counter-Maniera"), and, on Bronzino in particular, pp. 45-49. The word maniera simply connoted "style" in the sixteenth century, as in the phrases "bella maniera" or "maniera moderna," which occur throughout Vasari's vite. I italicize the word used in this sense and capitalize Maniera as a period designation (more precise than Mannerism) to signal late Renaissance art in Florence and Rome ca. 1530-60. For a useful survey of the history of these concepts in art and literature, see J. Mirollo, "Mannerism as a Term, Concept, and Controversy," in Mannerism and Renaissance Poetry: Concept, Mode, Inner Design, N e w Haven and London, 1984, pp. 1 - 7 1 . 3. See Vas.Mil., V I I I , pp. 252-65; Mitchell, 1979, pp. 46-50; and, on the imperial entry in particular, A. Chastel, "Les entrées de Charles Quint en Italie," in Jacquot, i960, pp. 202-3; V. Cazzato, "Vasari e Carlo V : L'ingresso trionfale a Firenze del 1536," in Garfagnini, 1985, pp. 179-204; and B. Mitchell, The Majesty of the State: Triumphal Progresses of Foreign Sovereigns in

349

Renaissance Italy (1494-1600), Florence, 1986, pp. 69-71. T h e apparati were under the direction of Vasari, with Tribolo, Ghirlandaio, Franco, Raffaello da Montelupo, Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, Cristofano Gherardi, and Montorsoli also participating. 4. For this picture, see W. C. Kirwin, "Vasari's Tondo of Cosimo I with His Architects, Engineers, and Sculptors in the Palazzo Vecchio," MKIF, 15, 1971, pp. 104-22. 5. Riccio came from Prato, had been Cosimo's tutor (from 1524), and after 1537 was treasurer (tesoriere di camera) and secretary to Cosimo until spring 1545, when he became m a j o r d o m o in charge of all expenses. See ASF, M D P 321, Cariche d'onore, ff. 15, 17, 22, 28 (quoted in Ferruzzi, 1986, p. 307); and ASF, M D P 4591, f. 41 (letter of Lorenzo Pagni of 6 April 1545, referring to Riccio, "il quale nella reforma della Casa di S. Ex. nuovamente fatta è stato dichiarato maiordomo maggiore di essa Casa"). Vasari mentions Riccio frequently, attributing to his influence Tasso's appointment as architect of the palace in 1540 and such important commissions as Tribolo's for the apparato for the baptism of Francesco de' Medici in 1541 (Vas.Mil., VI, pp. 90-91), Salviati's for the frescoes in the Sala delle Udienze in 1543 (VII, p. 22), Pontormo's for the frescoes in the choir of S. Lorenzo in 1546 (VI, p. 284), and Tasso's for the Mercato Nuovo (VI, p. 95). Riccio's many letters bear out Vasari's statements (see, for example, those published in Gaye, 1839-40, II, pp. 329, 330, and 371). On the necessity of artists' staying in Riccio's good graces and for the opinion that no artist, however skillful, could work at the court unless he was part of Riccio's clique, see Vas.Mil., VI, p. 91; and Cellini, La vita, 1971, bk. II, chap. 61. For Riccio's career at court and further bibliography, see Plaisance, 1972, pp. 398-99; Corti, 1977, pp. 11-14 (especially useful); Bigazzi, 1980, pp. 112-14, I 2 5 ~ 2 7 ; Simon, 1984, pp. 1 3 - 1 5 ; and Wright, 1986, p. 91. 6. For this portrait, see Bigazzi, 1980, cat. 5. Riccio is posed in front of Prato cathedral, of which he became proposto in 1550. T h e attribution to Salviati is problematic: although the painting (which is very dirty and also hangs at some distance from the observer) appears close to Salviati's portrait style, the painter left Florence definitively for Rome in 1548, two years before Riccio was appointed to his post at the cathedral. For Michele Tosini's posthumous portrait of Riccio dated 1574, see Bigazzi, 1980, cat. 6. 7. See Vas.Frey, I, p. 315. At this time Bronzino would have been working on the Resurrection for SS. Annunziata (commissioned in 1549) and, possibly, on the Christ in Limbo and the replica of the Lamentation for the Chapel of Eleonora, both completed in 1552. T h e picture Vasari was painting in 1550-51 was the lost altarpiece of S. Gismondo (see Vas.Mil. VII, pp. 691-92). 8. Vasari (Vas.Mil., VII, p. 30) favored Salviati's altarpiece: "e chi n'fatto dopo lui a concorrenza [Bronzino] non l'ha superato." For Bronzino's painting, see Bac. no. 96. There is no satisfactory monograph on Bronzino; the volume by Baccheschi in the Rizzoli series L'opera completa, however, has the advantage of a numbered catalogue; I will refer to this work for his paintings, adding references to specialized literature when necessary. 9. See Vas.Mil., VII, p. 598; Bac. no. 50. 10. Before Cosimo took possession of the building, it was known variously as the Palazzo de' Signori, the Palazzo Maggiore, the Palagio Pubblico, and the Palagio dei Priori. After his move there, it was called the Palazzo Ducale; it became known by its modern name, the Palazzo Vecchio, after 1549, when the ducal couple purchased the Palazzo Pitti. I will henceforth refer to it simply as the Palazzo. 11. For this chapel, see All.&Cec., pp. 396-97.

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PAGES

35°

8—I 5

12. For Riccio's letter of 14 November 1542, see A S F , M D P 358, f. 613: "Il Signor Don Francesco, mentre stamattina il prete diceva il chyrie, Sua S.ria Ill.ma replicava: lison, lison, et presa l'asperge dava l'acqua benedetta a' circunstanti, che io credetti haver a morir di ridere di quell' acti." For Giovanni's investiture, see Chapter 1, n. 45. 13. See All.&Cec., pp. 195-212. CHAPTER

I

1. "Stanze di Niccolò Martelli sopra le nozze del Duca Cosimo de' Medici," Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, ms. 2862, f. 165^ See also Martelli's sonnet "A Leonora di Tolledo: Madama alta e gentil, consorte cara/Di quel Signor che ai Toschi impera et regna" (BNF, ms. II.X.191, f. 4v).

2. For Don Pedro, see P. Giannone, Istoria civile del regno di Napoli, Naples, 1821, V I I , pp. 136-47. Piero Vettori's funeral oration for Eleonora (1563, pp. 2r-3r) gives some detail on the Toledo family origins. The best account of Eleonora's life is Baia, 1907; see also Pieraccini, 192425, I, pp. 55-70; the briefer, undocumented, accounts by Winspeare, 1961; and A. D'Addario, "Eleonora di Toledo, duchessa di Firenze e Siena," in Donne di casa Medici, Florence, 1968, pp. 33-62. The present chapter presents a brief account of Eleonora, focusing on the period of Bronzino's decoration of her chapel in the early 1540s and on the areas of her life and personal imagery to which the chapel paintings relate. 3. Naples, Archivio di Stato, Manoscritti nobiliari del march. Livio serra di Gerace, VI, f. 1506: "Eleonora Alvarez di Toledo, n. n gennaio 1519." The epitaph inscribed in 1858 on Eleonora's tomb (she died 17 December 1562) gives her age at death as forty-one (see Picenardi, 1888, p. 342); a later inscription, however, gives her age as forty-two. If the document quoted above gives Eleonora's correct date of birth, she was forty-three at the time of her death. 4. A S F , M D P 335, II, ff. 468r-472v (letter of Giovanni Bandini in Toledo to Cosimo de' Medici in Florence, 7 November 1538). See also ASF, M D P 4296, ff. 299^301 r, 3 0 7 ^ (letters of Giovanni Bandini in Toledo to Cosimo de' Medici in Florence, 21 and 23 November 1538). For contemporary notices of Cosimo's marriage, see Adriani, 1587, p. 60; Ammirato, 1641, III, pp. 457-58; Cini, 1 6 1 1 , pp. 102-3; and Segni, 1723, p. 247. For the political machinations connected with Cosimo's choice of a bride, see Baia, 1907, pp. 15-16; and Spini, 1945, pp. 133-37. 5. A S F , M D P 2, ff. i 2 i v - i 2 3 r (draft of a letter from Cosimo de' Medici in Florence to Giovanni Bandini in Naples, 11 January 1539). 6. According to Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, p. 56. For Jacopo's remark, see n. 8 below. Cristoforo Bronzini, who knew Eleonora, gives a glowing, if conventionalized, description of her in his treatise Della dignità e nobilità della donne, 1624-32 (week 1, day 4), p. 124: "Ebbe questa serenissima signora l'andar grave, lo star riverendo, il parlar dolce, pieno di sapore, la faccia chiara, e la vista angelica, et tutte le altre bellezze, che si leggono essere state nelle più celebrate donne." 7. For the marriage contract, see ASF, Miscellanea Medicea, V I I I , 3; see also A S F , Pergamene Medicee, 90, p. 12; and M D P 30 A - C ; and MDP 1, 13, ff. 64r-66r ("Capitoli del matrimonio"). On 10 March 1539 Cosimo wrote to Bandini, referring to Pope Paul Ill's earlier request that he marry the pope's relative Vittoria and to his successful alliance with the emperor through marriage to Eleonora (ASF, M D P 4299, ff. 88r-v (letter of Cosimo de' Medici in Florence to Giovanni Bandini in Naples, 10 March 1539): "Et benché io so che il Papa si farà beffe de' casi mia quando gli verrà notitia [del]le conditioni che io ho proposte a quelle mi offriva, tuttavia

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1 7 - 2 3

desidero o g n i g i o r n o havere qualche occasione di poter dimostrare a S. Maestà [Charles V ] che 10 non ho, né voglio haver mai altro signore et patrone al m o n d o di quella, né altra adherentia o dipendentia." 8. A S F , M D P 1169, ins. IV, f. 1 (letter o f Jacopo de' Medici in N a p l e s to Pierfrancesco Riccio in F l o r e n c e , 29 M a r c h 1539). " C o m e per le lettere di sua Ex. tla la S. V. Rev. d a intenderà, questa sera a ore 3 si è sposata la S.ra D o n n a L e o n o r a di T o l l e d o in n o m e dello Ill. mo S. or D u c a c o m u n padrone. . . . D i r o l l i solo che, oltre alla più che ragionevol belleza, si intende esser tanto ben creata et virtu[o]sa Signora q u a n t o uscissi mai di S p a g n a , di sorte che sua Ex. t,a ha da ringratiar I d d i o di essersi saputo eleggere una consorte tale, la q u a l Iddio l u n g a m e n t e li preservi." See also A S F , M D P 337, f. i34r (letter o f the notaio B e r n a r d o G a m b e r e l l i to C o s i m o de' Medici, 29 M a r c h 1539), in w h i c h he tells the d u k e that the " c o n v e n z i o n e di m a t r i m o n i o " w i t h D o n P e d r o w a s c o n c l u d e d and that the m a r r i a g e had been celebrated, the ring given to the bride, and the d o w r y arranged. 9. See A d e l s o n , 1985, p. 148, citing Jacopo's letter o f 29 M a r c h (see n. 8 above), as w e l l as another o f 2 A p r i l 1539. 10. A S F , M D P 3, I, ff. 5 o r ~ 5 i v (letter o f C o s i m o de' Medici in F l o r e n c e to D o n Pedro di T o l e d o in N a p l e s , 24 A p r i l 1539). 11. A S F , M D P 3 , 1 , ff. Ó3v-Ó4r (unsigned letter f r o m Florence to Jacopo de' M e d i c i in N a p l e s , 11 M a y 1539). 12. A S F , M D P 338, f. 55r (letter o f Eleonora di T o l e d o in N a p l e s to C o s i m o de' M e d i c i in F l o r e n c e , 18 M a y 1539). T h i s letter is reproduced in A . B e l l i n a z z i and C . L a m i o n i ,

Carteggio

universale di Cosimo I de' Medici, A r c h i v i o di Stato di F i r e n z e , Inventario, I, M e d i c e o del Principato, f i l z e 3 2 9 - 3 5 3 , Florence, 1982, pi. 13. In a letter o f 29 A u g u s t 1541 written on Eleonora's b e h a l f by L o r e n z o Pagni to D u k e C o s i m o ( A S F , M D P 353, f. 3 1 7 O w e learn that the d u k e could not read Eleonora's h a n d w r i t i n g at all: " E lei [Eleonora] m ' h a c o m a n d a t o che in n o m e suo li baci le m a n i , c o m e fo, con ogni debita reverentia et li dica che la m a g i o r pena che tiene è che V. Exc. a non intenda li scritti di m a n o sua, supplicandola che non resti però scrivere a lei (come ha fatto sin qui) di suo p u g n o , perchè non ha m a g i o r destanso in questa absentia sua, che il vedere et leggere sue lettere." See Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, pp. 62-63,

o n

Eleonora's h a n d w r i t i n g .

13. A S F , M D P 3, I, f. 6 i r (letter o f C o s i m o de' Medici in Florence to Eleonora di T o l e d o in N a p l e s , 11 M a y 1539): " H o r a poiché et la partita del' E x . V. è ritardata più di quello che io pensavo et che io non ho lettere sua, mi è parso spedirle il presente in diligentia per salutarla et dirle c o m e io sto benissimo D i o gratia et con il m e d e s i m o desiderio della venuta sua q u a . " 14. A S F , M D P 1169, ins. IV, no. 13, f. i 2 i r (letter o f Chiarissimo de' Medici in Pisa to Pierfrancesco Riccio in F l o r e n c e , 18 May 1539)15. Vasari (Vas.-i?«g\, p. 196) writes that he painted this scene in the Sala di C o s i m o , but it is not a m o n g the vignettes painted there. 16. G i a m . , pp. 3 - 5 (Min.&Mit., pp. 97-99). See also A S F , Manoscritti 126, II, I, pp. 1 6 1 - 6 4 (Settimanni). G i a m b u l l a r i was b o r n in 1495; his father, the poet B e r n a r d o G i a m b u l l a r i , had been in the service o f L e o X and had served as secretary to A l f o n s i n a Orsini de' Medici, m o t h e r o f L o r e n z o the younger. F o r his early life, see " N o t i z i e , " in Lezioni

di Messer Pierfrancesco

bullari, M i l a n , 1827, pp. v - v i i . 17. See G i a m . , p. 4 (Min.&Mit., p. 98); and A m m i r a t o , 1641, III, p. 457.

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26-27

Giam-

18. For Pagni, see Wright, 1986, p. 93. Pagni had a cousin Christiano, a lawyer who was also in Cosimo's circle, and another cousin Benedetto, a painter. All references to Pagni without a given name refer to Lorenzo. 19. A S F , M D P 339, ff. 79r-8ir. 20. Alamanno Salviati was Cosimo's uncle (Maria Salviati's brother); Piero may be Piero di Gino Capponi, on whom see Booth, 1921, p. 169. 21. See Giam., p. 4 (Min.&Mit., p. 98). 22. A S F , M D P 2, if. 138-139. 23. See Vas.-Rag., p. 196. 24. Gelli, noted poet and Dante scholar, was born in 1498; poetry for the wedding apparato was his first major literary work. For his life and works, see De Gaetano, 1976. 25. See Giam. and Min.&Mit.; see also A S F , Manoscritti 126, II, I, pp. 166-67 (Settimanni). For modern commentary on the apparato, see A. M. Nagler, Theatre Festivals of the Medici, 15391637, New Haven, 1964, pp. 5 - 1 2 ; G . G. Bertelà and A. P. Tofani, Feste e apparati medicei da Cosimo I a Cosimo II, mostra di disegni e incisioni, Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, 1969, p. 195; H . W. Kaufmann, "Art for the Wedding of Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora of Toledo (1539)," Paragone, 21, 1970, pp. 52-67; Forster, 1971, pp. 91-93; Mitchell, 1979, pp. 5 0 54; Cox-Rear., pp. 241-48, 251-56; and A. Testaverde Matteini, " L a decorazione festiva e l'itinerario di 'rifondazione' della città negli ingressi trionfali a Firenze tra X V e X V I secolo," MKIF, 32, 1988, pp. 341-48. 26. See Giam., pp. 6 - 1 5 (Min.&Mit., pp. 99-103); and Vas.Mil., V I , pp. 86-89 ( i n ^ e vita of Tribolo). 27. Vas.Mil., V I , pp. 86-87, describes the statue of Fecundity as "una femina di cinque braccia, fatta per la Fecondità, con cinque putti, tre avvolti alle gambe, uno in grembo, e l'altro al collo." 28. Giam., p. 18; Min.&Mit., pp. 99, 121-24: "Una grande arme delle Illustris. Casa Medici et Tolledo insieme congiunte et abbracciate dal'Aquila Imperiale." 29. See Giam., p. 19; and Min.&Mit., p. 124, which identifies the source of the quotation as Catullus, Ode L X I V , line 374. 30. Fidelity was alluded to in a lunette with a device showing a black dove on the branches of a dead bush with a green shoot growing from it (a play on the Medici impresa of the regenerating laurel). Its inscription

ILLE MEOS

is from Dido's words to Anna on the subject in Aeneid,

IV, 28 (see J. Gelli, Divise, motti e imprese di famiglie e personaggi italiani, Milan, 1928, pp. 2 5 6 57, no. 946). 3 1 . See Giam., p. 2 1 ; and Min.&Mit., p. 126, which identifies the source of the quotation as Aeneid III, 158, in which the gods of Troy address Aeneas. 32. See Giam., pp. 31-64 (Min.&Mit., pp. 196-223). For this entertainment, see H. W. Kaufmann, "Music for a Noble Florentine Wedding (1539)," in Words and Music: The Scholar's View, ed. L. Berman, Cambridge, Mass., 1972, pp. 1 6 1 - 9 1 ; for the music itself, see Musiche fatte nelle nozze, 5 vols., Venice: A. Gardane, 1539 (rept.), and for a recording of it, Firenze 1539, Centro Musica Antica di Ginevra, Studio di Musica Rinascimantale di Palermo, Schola "Jacopo da Bologna," dir. Gabriel Garrido (Tactus T C 53012001; recorded August 1987, November 1988; released 1990).

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353

2 7 - 3 I

33- See Giam., pp. 25-29 (Min.&Mit., pp. 130-35); and Vas.Mil., VI, pp. 87, 441-45. 34. Vas. C d L , VI, p. 304 (Vas.Mil., VI, p. 445); see also Giam., p. 29. This lost painting must be reflected in Vasari's later paintings of the marriage of Duke Alessandro as well as that of Catherine de' Medici in the Sala di Clement VII in the Palazzo. 35. See Giam., p. 29. Min.&Mit., p. 135 n. 76, gives the sources of these quotations: The first is from Catullus's Poem 61, lines 19-20 ("Junia marries Manlius, as beautiful as the inhabitant of Idalis, Venus, when she came to the Phrygian judge [Paris]; she gives herself to her husband, a perfect virgin, under perfect auspices"); the second paraphrases Aeneid, IV, 45; the last is from Catullus's Poem 61, lines 211—12, 233-34. 36. For example, Caterina Cibò (sister of the cardinal) wrote to Eleonora Gonzaga, duchess of Urbino, from Florence on 8 July 1541. See ASF, Carte d'Urbino, ci. 1, div. G., 266, f. Ó59r-v: "El Sr. Duca e Duchessa innamoratissimi insieme, mai stà l'uno senza altro." And Cosimo's biographer Adriani, 1871, pp. 19-20, praises the match and Eleonora herself: " E visse [Cosimo] con essa molto contento, amandosi scambievolmente quanto si possa credere: ed era anche da essa amata, che, oltre alla forma vaghissima era d'ingegno raro e di bellissime maniere, ed atta a governi grandi, e di bello animo." 37. W. Thomas, The History of Italy, ed. G. B. Parks, Ithaca, N.Y., 1963, p. 105. For other comments on the affection of the ducal couple, see Settimanni (ASF, Manoscritti 126, II, I, p. 296), who tells of an incident of rudeness to Eleonora, "il che dispiaceva al Duca che amava molto la Duchessa"; and Bronzini, 1624-32, p. 124, who notes: "da Cosimo fu [Eleonora] molto amata." 38. Simon, 1985, pp. 20-23. 39. See Simon (as in n. 38); and C. Plazzotta, who, in a review of Bronzino's Rima in burla, 1988, in Buri., 1 3 1 , 1989, p. 715, comments on the provocative portrayal of Cosimo, seen from the rear, "a sedere," which echoes the homoerotic imagery of Bronzino's own poetry (on which see Chapter 10, nn. 74-75). 40. For details on the life of the ducal family during the early 1540s, see Baia, 1907, pp. 2 4 62; Booth, 1921, pp. 105-26; Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, pp. 57-63; and Winspeare, 1961, pp. 11-22. The letters of the ducal secretaries Grifoni, Pagni, and Riccio contained in A S F , M D P 1169-72, make it clear that the children lived at Castello. 41. See Baia, 1907, p. 39, for the cities visited in 1542; Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, p. 57, for those visited in 1545. 42. The diarists all comment on this illness, which threatened the very existence of the Medici principato. Settimanni reports in October that Cosimo was gravely ill and that it was widely believed that he had been poisoned; according to the same source, the duke was still convalescing at the time of Maria Salviati's funeral on 14 December (ASF, Manoscritti 126, II, I, pp. 294, 301). Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, pp. 33-37, gives a detailed account of this illness as well as of a less serious one of early August to November 1544. 43. Opinion is divided as to what powers Eleonora may actually have exercised. See Baia, 1907, pp. 37-38; C. O. Tosi, "Eleonora di Toledo reggente lo Stato," L!illustratore fiorentino, 1910, pp. 162-66; and Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, p. 61. A sample of Eleonora's direction of Cosimo's dayto-day affairs is found in letters from her to Cosimo or his captains concerning the lodging of soldiers in Barberino di Mugello. See ASF, M D P 353, f. ifi^r (copy; to Cosimo, 31 August 1541 ); M D P 354, ff. i5r, i6r-i8r; M D P 354, ff. 34r-v (to Cosimo, 3 September 1541, signed " L a Duchessa"); M D P 354, f. 36 (to Camillo Colonna, Cosimo's captain, 3 September 1541 ); M D P 354, f. i32r-v (to Colonna, signed " L a Duchessa").

NOTES

TO

PAGES

354

3 I —3 5

44- On the twenty-sixth Pagni reported on Eleonora's ecstatic reception of a letter from the duke and of her attending to business; see A S F , M D P 353, ff. 259r-20or (letter of Lorenzo Pagni in Florence to Ugolino Grifoni in Genoa, 26 August 1541). On 27 August Eleonora wrote to the prioress of S. Pietro in Pistoia, making a contribution to. the convent and requesting the prioress's prayers for the successful governance of Florence (quoted in Cantini, 1805, p. 516). A n d on the twenty-eighth Pagni wrote to Cosimo on Eleonora's behalf, conveying her distress that the duke could not read her handwriting (see n. 1 2 above). 45.

A S F , M D P 354, f. 18.

46. See Ferrai, 1882, pp. 198-99; Baia, 1907, pp. 29-32; and Booth, 1921, pp. 1 1 9 - 2 1 . 47. See Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, pp. 57—58. 48. B N F , ms. Magi. V I I I . 8 0 , 1 , f. 203V (copy of an undated letter of Eleonora di Toledo). T h e letter is annotated by the copyist "Della Duchessa Leonora al Duca Cosimo ammalato" a n d — incorrectly, I believe—"Queste parole furno causa, che li Spag. 1 ' già levati dal Duca f u m o rimessi nelle fortezze." 49. Cosimo is shown without the badge of the Order of the Golden Fleece, received in 1545 and worn in the later versions of this portrait. For the date of this work, see Simon, 1983; idem, 1984, pp. 66-80, 2 3 1 - 3 4 . See also Lang. cat. 27,44, which attributes it to Luigi Fiammingo after Bronzino. 50. This portrait measures 59 x 46 cm.; thus, unless it has been cut down, it cannot be a literal pendant to Cosimo's portrait, which measures 74 x 58 cm. See my forthcoming study of Bronzino's portraits of Eleonora for further details on his portraits of the ducal couple. For this portrait, see Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 598 (mention of a portrait of Eleonora dating before the Uffizi Eleonora and Giovanni

of 1545); also Bac. no. 55d; Lang. cat. 35,iof; Cox-Rearick, 1982, pp. 7 2 - 7 3 ; Simon,

1983, p. 536; idem, 1984, p. 77; and Campbell, 1985, p. 387. As Simon and I have both noted, a portrait of Eleonora that must be this one was delivered to Poggio a Caiano on 23 October 1543 (ASF, M D P 1 1 7 0 , ins. V I , f. 336). 5 1 . See Lang. cat. 35,23. 52. See Lang. cat. 27,19a. For the identification of the work and date, see Simon, 1983; idem, 1984, pp. 8 9 - 1 3 4 ; idem, "Il ritratto di Cosimo I nel Museo Gioviano," Atti del Convegno

Paolo

Giovio: Il rinascimento e la memoria (Como, 1983), Como, 1985, pp. 1 8 3 - 9 2 ; and idem, " 'Blessed Be the H a n d of Bronzino': T h e Portrait of Cosimo I in Armour," Burl., 129, 1987, pp. 387-88. In the last two articles, Simon demonstrates that this is the portrait mentioned in Vas.Mil., V I I , pp. 5 9 7 - 9 8 — t h e one that was given by Cosimo to Paolo Giovio. Giovio thanks him for it on 30 July 1546 ( A S F , M D P 1 1 7 0 A , ins. II, no. 6, f. i4r). 53. For this picture, see Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 598; also, from its vast bibliography, Beck, 1972; idem, 1974, pp. 62, 66; Bac. no. 55; Lang., I, pp. 98-99, and cat. 35,10; McCorquodale, 1981, pp. 9 2 - 9 3 ; Cox-Rearick, 1982, pp. 7 1 - 7 7 ; Simon, 1983, p. 536; idem, 1984, p. 75; and Campbell, 1985, p. 387. Beck and Langedijk call the child Francesco, an identification based on listings in the 1553 and 1560 inventories of the guardaroba

of a large portrait of the duchess with Francesco.

This is a different picture, however (see n. 60 below). T h e child's apparent age (two to three years) concurs with Giovanni's birthdate (1543), and his appearance agrees with Bronzino's portrait of Giovanni from the spring of 1545 (Uffizi; see Lang. cat. 54,4). A mid-1545 date for the portrait also seems to be confirmed by two Bronzino letters written in August from Poggio a Caiano (docs. 8 and 13).

NOTES TO PAGES 3 5 — 3 7 355

54- Giovanni was given "la tonsura nella Cappella del Palazzo Ducale" (the Chapel of the Priors) on 21 June 1550 (see ASF, Pergamene Medicee, 90, p. 32V). 5 5 . London, Victoria and Albert Museum ms. L . 1 7 9 2 - 1 9 5 3 . The manuscript is dated 1 0 February 1540 (New Style 1541 ). See S. Meloni Trkulja, in Pal.Vec., cat. 362, who does not suggest an author for the illuminations. The borders of these pages are stylistically similar to the work of Francesco di Giovanni Boccardi, who also illuminated a Book of Hours for Duke Alessandro (Florence, Biblioteca Corsiniana ms. 1 2 3 2 ) , as well as the frontispiece of Duke Cosimo's imperial diploma of 1 5 3 7 (ASF, Trattati internazionali, 1, ins. C; see Lang. cat. 2 7 , 6 2 ) . The miniatures are by a different hand, not that of an illuminator but of a painter such as Michele Ghirlandaio. 56. For a contemporary account of the baptism, see Jacopo Cortesi da Prato, Il Battesimo Don Garzia de' Medici, ed. G. Saltini, Florence, 1893.

di

57. On the purchase of the Pitti Palace, see F. Morandini, .Mostra documentaria e iconografica di Palazzo Pitti e Giardino di Boboli, Florence, Archivio di Stato, i 9 6 0 , p. 1 3 , doc. 11. According to All.&Cec., p. 8, there was a partial transfer of the court to the Pitti Palace in May 1550. 58.

See Vas.Mil., VII, pp.

699-700;

and All.&Cec., pp.

195-212.

59. See Vas .-Rag., p. 196. All.&Cec., p. 150, wrongly identifies the subject of this painting as the birth of Francesco. 6 0 . See Lang. cat. 3 5 , 1 2 ; and Simon, 1 9 8 4 , p. 7 6 . The dark-haired, dark-eyed boy is identifiable as Francesco on the basis of a comparison with Bronzino's portrait of him of 1551, when he was ten years old (Uffizi; Lang. cat. 4 2 , 2 4 ) . 6 1 . Domenichi, 1 5 4 9 , p. 2 5 2 V . Plazzotta, zino's dynastic portraits of Eleonora. 62.

See Campbell,

63.

See Ferrerò,

1956-58,

64.

See Pollard,

1985,

1983,

pp.

cat.

823-24;

II, p. 392;

p.

1988,

25,

Cox-Rear., p.

quoted this passage in relation to Bron-

290;

and Rousseau,

1985,

pp.

375-80.

200.

and Lang. cat.

35,30.

65. For Bartoli, Vasari, and the programmes for the Quartiere degli Elementi and the Quartiere di Leone X, see Bryce, 1983, pp. 51-71; also Cox-Rear., p. 290; and Rousseau, 1985, pp. 37580. For Eleonora-Juno in the Sala di Giove, see Vas .-Rag., pp. 9 1 - 9 6 ; All.&Cec., pp. 9 1 - 9 6 ; for the Sala di Opi, see Vas .-Rag., p. 4 6 ; All.&Cec., pp. 8 3 - 9 0 ; and for the Sala degli Elementi, see Vas.-Rag., pp. 1 1 - 3 5 ; All.&Cec., pp. 6 3 - 7 3 ; a n c ' Rousseau, 1 9 8 5 , pp. 3 2 0 - 5 6 . In Vas .-Rag., pp. 7 3 , 7 6 , the description of a statue of Juno in the Terrace of Juno ( 1 5 5 6 - 5 7 ) , dedicated to Eleonora, concludes: "certo Sua Eccellenza è Giunone istessa." See All.&Cec., pp. 1 0 2 - 4 , and, f° r the opinion that this decoration was not intended to allude to Eleonora, see McGrath, 1 9 8 5 , pp. 1 2 5 - 2 6 . 66. The fountain was partially installed in the Sala Grande for Francesco's wedding celebrations in 1565 but was later removed; for a reconstruction, see D. Heikamp, "Bartolommeo Ammannati's Marble Fountain for the Sala Grande of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence," in Fons Sapientiae: Renaissance Garden Fountains, Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium on the History of Landscape Architecture, ed. E. B. MacDougall, 5 , 1 9 8 0 , pp. 1 2 0 - 3 0 ; and All.&Cec., pp. 2 2 3 - 2 6 ; for the fountain's reference to Eleonora, see M. Campbell, "Observations on the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Time of Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, 1 5 4 0 - 1 5 7 4 , " in Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell'Europa del ' 5 0 0 , Florence, 1 9 8 3 , III, pp. 8 2 1 - 2 4 ; Cox-Rear., p. 2 9 0 ; and Rousseau, i9 8 5>PP-373- 8 °67. ASF, MDP 353, f. 324 (letter of 29 August 1541).

NOTES

TO

PAGES

356

37-45

68. See Saltini, 1898, p. 86, citing a letter of 1558. 69. Quoted in Scaduto, 1964, p. 578. 70. See Baldinucci, 1845-47, II, pp. 374~77- For Eleonora and the Jesuits, see Scaduto, 1964, pp. 577-85; also Baia, 1907, pp. 53-62. 71. On the details of Eleonora's illness, see Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, pp. 65-68. 72. A S F , M D P 1176, ins. IX, f. 40 (letter of Lorenzo Pagni to Pierfrancesco Riccio, 23 March 1552). 73. T h e original of the three-quarter-length Cosimo is lost, but see the workshop version in Turin, Galleria Sabauda (Lang. cat. 27,36; and Simon, 1984, p. 152 and cat. b25). Simon, 1984, p. 158, believes that the portrait of Cosimo de' Medici in Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (Lang, cat. 27,38) is the original bust-length version. The original three-quarter-length Eleonora is lost but may be recorded in the workshop painting in Washington, National Gallery (see Bac. no. 112a; Shapley, 1979, I, pp. 93-94; Lang. cat. 35,14; and Campbell, 1985, p. 387). P. Costamagna, "Osservazioni sull'attività giovanile di Alessandro Allori: Seconda parte—les portraits," Antichità viva, 27, 1988, p. 29, believes the Washington picture is Bronzino's original. There is a problem about the date of these pictures: Vasari (Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 601) says Bronzino painted the duke and duchess when Cosimo was forty (1559 or 1560), and there is an entry for a portrait of the duke in the guardaroba inventory of 1560 (ASF, Guardaroba Medicea 45, f. 6or); as Langedijk points out, however, one of the replicas bears the inscription " A N N I X X X V I , " suggesting that Cosimo was thirty-six when the original was painted. 74. See Bac. no. 1 1 2 ; and Lang. cat. 35,8. This work is usually dated about 1560 and considered as the model for the Washington picture; however, Costamagna (as in n. 73), p. 29, attributes it to Allori. 75. Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, p. 68, whose primary interest in the Medici was medical, notes of the Berlin picture: " L a Eleonora apparisce realmente malata: le mani affilate, il naso assottigliato, le gote scavate, gli zigomi sporgenti, il bell'ovale della faccia allungato e nei tratti segnate le sofferenze di una deperita." 76. See M. McCrory, in Pal.Vec. cat. 227; Lang. cat. 27,195 and 278 (Vasari's drawing for the cameo); and M. Sframeli, in A. Giusti et al., Splendori di pietre dure: Larte di corte nella Firenze dei Granduchi, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1988, cat. 2. 77. See A. Martellini, La solenne entrata dello illustrisi. & eccellentiss. sig. il Duca di Fiorenza et Siena, fatta a XXVIII d'ottobre MDIX, Siena, 1560, p. 12: "vi è un inscrittione principale: Cosmum Med. Princ. opt. & Eleonoram coniugem lectissimam. S. P. Ilaris veneratur et excipit." 78. See La solenne entrata (as in n. 77), p. 12; see also Cimi, 1560, p. 4r. The description concludes: "Sotto questo sono due figli del Duca; intorno al primogenito, in atto di consulta, con questo verso, Qui iuvenes quantas ostentant aspice viros." 79. This important event was widely reported at the time: see A S F , Manoscritti 127, II, II, p. 453 (Settimanni); and La solenne entrata dell' Illustrisi. & Eccllentisss. Signore II Sig. Duca di Firenze, fatta in Rome alli VI del presente mese di novembre 1560, Bologna, 1560, n.p.; also Galluzzi, 1781, II, pp. 20-22. 80. A S F , M D P 1176, ins. X, f. 3 (letter of Lorenzo Pagm, 25 July 1551). 81. Quoted in Scaduto, 1964, p. 581. 82. See Albèri, 1 8 3 9 - 5 3 , 1 , pp. 352-53-

NOTES

TO

PACES

357

4 5 - 4 9

83- For these events and Eleonora's death, see Ferrai, 1882, pp. 81-89; Saltini, 1898, pp. 1 3 2 34; Baia, 1907, pp. 81-89; Booth, 1921, pp. 187-88; Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, p. 66; and Scaduto, 1964, pp. 5 8 3 - 8 5 . 84. A S F , M D P 5922a, ins. X X V I I I , ff. I 2 8 r - i 3 i r . "In prima lascia suo herede universale di tutti li suoi beni mobili, immobili, ragioni, azzioni presenti e futuri [etc.] L'Eccell. m o Sig.r Duca suo consorte." 85. A S F , M D P 327, ff. ioyff. For the letter, see Spini, 1940, pp. 183-86. Much of it is translated in Booth, 1 9 2 1 , pp. 187-88. 86. Lapini, 1900, pp. 1 3 5 - 3 8 . See also A S F Manoscritti 128, I I I , pp. 239-40 (Settimanni); a letter by Guido Serguidi, quoted in Saltini, 1898, p. 134; and Moreni, 1827, pp. 75-78. Cosimo was later buried with her (see Borsook, 1965-66, p. 47). 87. See Vettori, 1563. According to Moreni, 1827, pp. 7 5 - 7 7 , orations were also read by Adriani, Giovanni Guadagni, and Pietro Perondini. 88. Vettori, trans. Mini, 1563, p. 3V. 89. See Moreni, 1827, pp. 77-78; and Baia, 1907, pp. 90-93. For Bronzini's characterization of Eleonora, see n. 6 above. 90. See Bronzino, 1823, p. 41. These lines are quoted from no. 12 of a group of thirteen sonnets on the death of Eleonora (pp. 36-42). 91. See Albèri, 1 8 3 9 - 5 3 , I> P- 7792. T h e abdication took place on 1 May 1564 (see C. O. Tosi, "Abdicazione di Cosimo de' Medici in favore del figliuolo Francesco," Arte e storia, 1907, pp. 23-25); but Lapini, 1900, p. 1 4 1 , records the official transfer of power to Francesco as having been made on Cosimo's forty-fifth birthday (11 June). 93. For this decoration, see the description of the apparato by Cini, in Vas.Mil., V I I I , pp. 5 6 1 64; and the correspondence with Borghini in Vas.Frey, II, pp. 195-203; and Borghini, 1 9 1 2 , p. 28. 94. See Cini, in Vas.CdL, V I I I , p. 123 (Vas.Mil., V I I I , p. 564). 95. For the rapid decline in Cosimo's health and its turn for the worse, which left him paralyzed in early 1573, see Pieraccini, 1924-25, II, pp. 40-46. 96. For Eleonora's portrait, see Bac. no. 55c; Lang. cat. 35,38 (as school of Bronzino); and Cox-Rear., pp. 288-90. Given the high quality of their execution, these portraits are attributable to Allori. Eleonora's coiffure and her high-collared dress accord with the fashion of the early 1570s. For the Studiolo, see All.&Cec., pp. 3 2 3 - 5 0 .

CHAPTER

2

1. L. Landucci, Diario fiorentino dal 1450 al 1516 di Luca Landucci continuato da un anonimo fino al 1542, ed. I. del Badia, Florence, 1883, p. 376. See also the account by Cosimo's biographer Baldini, 1578, p. 3 1 : "[Cosimo] deliberò d'andare ad habitare nel Palagio de i Priori, et si come egli era stato eletto Prencipe della Città da i suoi Cittadini, così stare ancora et habitare in quel medesimo palagio nel quale era sempre mai stato ne i tempi passati il sommo Magistrato della Città il quale era già Prencipe di quella, perche egli fece acconciarvi molte stanze e assai begli habituri da potergli commodamente habitare, et partitosi dal palagio de i Medici andò a stare nel

NOTES

TO

PAGES

358

50-54

palagio de i Priori di sopra detto." On the history of the palace before 1540, see Lensi, 1929, pp. 3 - 1 1 6 ; and AU.&Cec., pp. 40, 392-97. 2. A S F , M D P 600, f. 4V: "Addì xv detto [May 1540] in sabbato a hore 20 in circa vigilia dello Spirito Santo il S.r Duca Cosimo con la S.ra Duchessa Lionora sua consorte entrò nel palazzo maggiore in Fiorenza electo per habitatione di lor Ex. e , quod faustum felixque sit." Landucci (as in n. 1 above), p. 376, and Lapini, 1900, p. 106, also record this date, although in the letter (cited in n. 4 below) Cosimo gives the day as the fourteenth. 3. Adriani, 1587, p. 129. See also other contemporary accounts of the move such as Vas.-Rag., pp. 1 4 - 1 7 .

4. A S F , M D P 10, f. 114V (letter of Cosimo de' Medici in Florence to Don Pedro di Toledo in Naples, 14 May 1540). 5. Lapini, 1900, p. 103, reports that Cosimo "fe' restaurare e ridurre a miglior forma il detto palazzo . . . e si spese nel ridurre detto palazzo molte miglia di scudi." Segni, 1723, p. 248, notes: "si ritrasse ad abitare nel Palazzo già stato della Signoria, perciò con molte muraglie furono ressettate quelle stanze fabbricate per gli Signori Civili, e piccole, e si rimutatono tutte le stanze antiche della Gabella del Sale, delle stanze de' Leoni, della Mercanzia, ed ogni cosa si voltò sottosopra, acciocché '1 Duca in quel Palazzo potesse abitare più comodamente." 6. A S F , M D P 1169, ins. V, f. 15 (letter of Lorenzo Pagni in Poggio a Caiano to Pierfrancesco Riccio in Florence, 8 October 1540). For the apartments and rooms of the palace as they existed in 1553, see Conti, 1893. 7. A S F , M D P 3 5 1 , ff. 326-327 (letter of Pierfrancesco Riccio in Florence to Lorenzo Pagni in Pisa, 22 M a y 1 5 4 1 ) .

8. A S F , M D P 358, f. 37 (letter of Pierfrancesco Riccio in Florence to Lorenzo Pagni in Trebbio, 5 August 1542). T h e letter continues: " L i ill.mi Sig." figliuoli di S. E. xa sono hoggi in palazzo et stanno bnss.°, Dio sia sempre lodato. Et sta sera se ne torneranno alla S.ra Maria [Salviati] che sta bene." 9. It may be indicative that the first inventory of the guardaroba after the move was taken on 25 March 1544 (ASF, Guardaroba Medicea 8). All.&Cec., p. 292, note that this date was three months after the death of Maria Salviati and may reflect Eleonora's taking over the household. 10. Tasso is mentioned often in Vas.Mil., V I , pp. 89, 91, 95, 96, 238; V I I , p. 22; V I I I , pp. 69697; Vasari notes his important position in the service of the duke, his influence with him on behalf of other artists, and his place of favor with Riccio. 1 1 . See Lensi, 1929, p. 124. Payments to Tasso for work in the initial remodeling campaign between 18 March 1542 and 30 January 1543 are found in A S F , M D P 600, f. 8v: " E addì detto [March 1542] feci una poliza al detto [Michel Ruberti] che pagasse al Tasso scudi xv di moneta a buon conto per lavori fatti." F. i8r (payment to Tasso for woodwork, November 1542): "Fecesi pagare al Tasso legnaiuolo scudi x d'oro moneta dal depositario delle bande . . . con ordine di Michel Ruberti." F. 2 i r (settling of Tasso's account for work in the Palazzo, 30 January 1543): "Addì detto [January 1543]. Sotto scripsi un conto di Battista Tasso a Michel Ruberti che importa lire 335 piccioli, saldo per maestro Tribolo, di lavori fatti in palazzo." 12. Vas.Mil., V I , pp. 1 7 0 - 7 5 . On the udienza, see All.&Cec., pp. 32-39, quoting (p. 36) payment of Bandinelli's salary of 260 scudi from 20 September 1542 to 7 April 1543 (ASF, Depositeria generale 573, f. 195V). To keep my references to the works of art in the Palazzo as brief as

NOTES

TO P A G E S 359

54 — 5 7

possible, I generally refer only to All.&Cec., which gives the dating, documentation, and bibliography of all decorations there. 13. See Vas.Mil., V I , p. 455; and All.&Cec., p. 49. 14. Cheney, 1963, pp. 359-74, cites (pp. 646-47) the letter recording the commission, payments to Salviati in 1544 and 1545 (ASF, Guardaroba Medicea 10, ff. 2iv, 22r, 32V, 43V, and 47r), and Giovio's letter of 1 1 September 1545 referring to the frescoes (for which, see Chapter 3, n. 55). T h e decoration, however, was said to be unfinished by A. F. Doni, Lettere del Doni, libro secondo, Florence, 1547 (letter of 3 June 1547 to Salviati); and L. Domenichi, La pittura di Leonbattista Alberti tradotta per M. Lodovico Domenichi, Venice, 1548, p. 3. For the Sala, see also Vas.Mil., V I I , pp. 2 2 - 2 7 ;

an

d All.&Cec., pp. 4 0 - 4 7 .

15. See Adelson, 1983, pp. 899-924; and idem, 1985, pp. 147-50, for a brief summary of the tapestries in the context of Cosimo's renovation of the Palazzo. For the cycle, see also Bac. nos. an 5 9 - 7 4 ; Adelson, in Pal.Vec. cat. 8 0 - 9 9 ; d idem, in Dolcini, 1 9 8 5 , pp. 1 9 - 4 6 , with a reconstruction of the hanging of the tapestries. 1 6 . Conti, 1 8 9 3 , pp. 6 2 - 6 3 , identifies this room as Eleonora's udienza because of a baldachino mentioned in the 1553 inventory that was similar to one in the Sala delle Udienze. It is unlikely that this was Eleonora's bedroom, as Lensi, 1929, pp. 26-27, contends, for the Sala di Gualdrada is convincingly designated as such by Conti, 1893, pp. 6 1 - 6 2 . See also All.&Cec., pp. 3 0 - 3 1 .

17. See D. Marzi, La Cancelleria della Repubblica

Fiorentina,

Rocca S. Casciano, 1910, p. 478.

18. A S F , M D P 600, f. iov: " E addì 20 detto [May 1542] feci una poliza a Messer Frane." Pretino, sottomaestro di casa di S. Ex. a , che pagasse a Ridolfo del Grillandaio pictore scudi 34 di moneta per resto della pictura grottesca fatta nella camera verde di sopra del palazzo. Saldo il conto per maestro Tribolo e maestro Bronzino" (see All.&Cec., p. 3 1 , where the document is transcribed differently). 19. After discussing the Sala delle Udienze, Vasari (Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 27) lists the scrittoio along with other works painted by Salviati in the Palazzo (such as the lost ceiling of the winter dining hall) before his departure for Rome in 1548. This list has suggested a dating of 1545 (see Lensi, 1929, p. 136; Cheney, 1963, p. 375; All.&Cec., p. 48); however, as Cheney, pp. 1 6 1 - 6 2 , notes, the decoration may have been contemporaneous with the rest of the work in Eleonora's suite. 20. T h e earlier literature on the frescoes is as follows (with the dates assigned by the authors): Furno, 1902, p. 45; Schulze, 1 9 1 1 , p. xi (1545-64); Goldschmidt, 1 9 1 1 , pp. 34, 54 (1545-64); Schaeffer, 1 9 1 1 , p. 6 1 ; Tinti, 1920, pp.'8-9 (1545-64); Voss, 1 9 2 0 , 1 , pp. 2 1 7 - 1 8 ; McComb, 1928, pp. 3 3 - 3 5 , 56 ( 1 5 5 0 - 6 4 ) ; L e n s i , 1 9 2 9 , pp. 1 3 2 - 3 4 ; V e n t u r i , 1 9 3 3 , p p . 3 , 4 2 - 4 8 ( c o m m i s s i o n in

1539, execution after 1548); Berenson, 1936, p. 99; Becherucci, 1944, p. 48 (after 1548); and Becherucci, 1949, p. 5. Smyth, 1956, pp. 2 1 5 - 2 1 , challenged the traditional dating of the frescoes on the basis of their stylistic connections with Bronzino's paintings of the 1530s and on Vasari's statement that the chapel was begun after Cosimo's marriage; he dated the inception of the project to 1 5 3 9 and the frescoes to the early 1 5 4 0 s , with The Gathering of Manna dated 1 5 4 6 . 2 1 . These inscriptions were found by Giovanni Poggi during the restoration of the chapel in 1949. I determined the dates interpolated in them from the perpetual calendar tables in A. Cappelli, 1930, Cronologia cronografia e calendario perpetuo, Milan, 1930, pp. 73, 89. See Emiliani, i 9 6 0 , pp. 3 5 - 3 6 , 6 6 - 6 7 , and text opposite pis. 3 3 - 3 6 ; Cox-Rearick, I971:PP1 0 - 1 1 , where the inscriptions are transcribed and discussed; and Smyth, 1971, pp. 5 3 - 5 4 n. 23. Other post-1960 literature on the frescoes is as follows: Emiliani, 1961; Berenson, 1963, I, p. 42; 22.

N O T E S

TO

P A G E S

360

5 7 - 6 0

Shearman, 1 9 6 3 , p. 4 1 6 ; Bac. nos. 3 6 - 4 6 ; Freedberg, 1971, p. 7 0 3 (expressing doubts that The Brazen Serpent was finished in 1542 and suggesting that the Roc^-Manna fresco may be "significantly later in date"); Cheney, 1 9 7 3 , pp. 1 6 5 - 6 6 ; Richelson, 1 9 7 5 , pp. 1 0 9 - 1 0 ; All.&Cec., pp. 2 1 2 9 ; McCorquodale, 1 9 8 1 , pp. 7 2 - 8 3 ; and Cox-Rearick, 1 9 8 7 , pp. 4 5 - 4 6 . 23. As noted by Collareta, 1980, p. 116. 24. This is the conclusion of All.&Cec., p. 28, which proposes (but does not document) that a new inner door to the chapel was installed in 1563. 25. See Cox-Rearick, 1971, pp. 9 - 1 1 . 26. The fresco measures 2.91 (height at center) x 4.83 m. (width at lower edge). 27. The vault measures 4.88 x 3.82 m.; the medallions measure 45 x 32 cm.; and each spandrel measures 85 x 60 cm. 28. The fresco measures 1.66 (height at center) x 3.75 m. (width at lower edge; each side 1.05 m.). 29. The fresco measures 0.91 (height over the door), 1.28 m. (width at lower edge of the left side), 1.49 (width at the lower edge of the right side), 4.90 m. (total width); and the overdoor measures 68 x 85 cm. 3 0 . For these frescoes, see Zeri, 1 9 5 2 , pp. 5 7 - 5 8 ; Cox-Rearick, 1 9 7 1 , pp. 1 0 - 1 1 ; Bac. nos. 46; All.&Cec., p. 26; McCorquodale, 1981, p. 83; and Cox-Rearick, 1987, p. 46.

4 5 -

3 1 . I am grateful to Daniella Dini for her diagrams of the giornate and for discussing the issues of giornate with me. 3 2 . Emiliani, i 9 6 0 , pp. 3 5 - 3 6 , alludes (although in incomplete and somewhat garbled form) to Edward Sanchez's discovery of this evidence, communicated to Emiliani by Craig Hugh Smyth.

33. See also A S F , M D P 600, f. 24V ("E addì detto [4 April 1543] che dessi a Lionardo Brogiotti scudi 60 per la muraglia, e pittori del palazzo"), which may include payment to Bronzino. Two other indications of payments to Bronzino in letters of 1543 and 1544 are probably not connected with the chapel. On 21 May 1543 Agnolo Marzi de' Medici wrote from Pietrasanta to Riccio in Florence suggesting that the duke was in favor of employing Bronzino for an unnamed project: "Del Bronzino anchora [Duke Cosimo] si contenta che sia servito et aiutato di qualche cosa" (ASF, M D P 1170, ins. IV, f. 207). On 31 January 1544 the same secretary wrote to Riccio from Pisa that Cosimo had seen a bill for Bronzino's work and declared that it was Eleonora's responsibility: "Siane con la Duchessa che son cose sua" (ASF, M D P 1 1 7 1 , ins. I, f. 15). 3 4 . Vasari, 1 9 8 6 , pp. 5 9 2 - 9 3 . 35. As noted by Shearman, 1963, p. 416. Vasari alludes to this date in his own vita (Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 683); on 8 July 1547 he received congratulations on having "condotto el libro al fine" (Vas.Frey, I, p. 199); and on 10 and 15 December, Giovio and Annibale Caro wrote to him that they had read the manuscript (Vas.Frey, I, pp. 199, 209). 36. For the complete text on the chapel, see Vas.CdL, V I I I , pp. 1 7 - 1 8 (Vas.Mil., V I I , pp. 59697). For Vasari's praise of the frescoes in this passage, see Chapter 4. 37. See A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 8, f. 4. The chaplain is Andrea Macinelli da Montepulciano, listed by Conti, 1893, p. 271, in the "Ruolo degli Stipendiati della Corte Medicea nell'anno 1553 (ASF, Depositeria generale 393). 38. The present arched window of the Capponi Chapel results from a later reconstruction, probably dating from the 1564 building of Vasari's corridor connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with

N O T E S

T O

P A G E S

361

6 0 - 7 3

the Palazzo Pitti, which passes over the church. For the original architecture of the chapel, see H. Saalman, "Form and Meaning at the Barbadori-Capponi Chapel in S. Felicita," Burl., 1 3 1 , 1989, pp. 532-39, fig. 17. CHAPTER

3

1. These payments are recorded in the first volume of an account book kept by Cosimo's new treasurer, Michele Ruberti. On Ruberti and on this first volume, Depositeria generale 573 ( 1 5 4 3 45), see Ferruzzi, 1986, pp. 307-8. See the Appendix for a summary of the payments to Bronzino for work in the chapel. 2. According to Vas.Mil., V, p. 208, Mariotto (d. 1548) worked with Vasari himself in 1536, and with Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini on Cosimo's wedding apparato. 3. On 22 July Riccio noted in his ricordi (ASF, M D P 616, ins. I, if. 9-10): "Addi 22 di Luglio 1545 . . . Dell'ornamento della tavola della Cappella [della Duchessa]." See Wright, 1986, p. 97 n. 3 1 , who cites f. 12 (dated 1545), which contains the notation "Tavola della Cappella"; and f. 13, which is dated "addì ult° di luglio 1545," and contains the notation " L a Tavola dalla Cappella della duchessa." I thank David Wright for these references. 4. Granvelle (1484-1550) became councillor of state to Charles V in 1524 and first minister in 1530, a post he occupied until his death. He accompanied the emperor on his many travels and in his wars as well as representing him at diets in Germany and at the Council of Trent. His portrait, painted by Titian in 1548 at Augsburg, is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts at Besançon. For Granvelle, see A. Castan, "Monographie du Palais Granvelle à Besancon," Mémoires lus à la Sorbonne: Archéologie, Paris, 1866, pp. 291-306; idem, 1881, p. 463; idem, 1881, Mémoires, pp. 1 2 20; M. l'Abbé Perrin, "Nicholas Perrenot de Granvelle, ministre de Charles-Quint," Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Besançon, Proces-Verbaux et Mémoires, 1899, pp. 2off; and M. Van Durme, "A propos du quatrième centenaire de la mort de Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle," Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance, 28, 1951, pp. 270-94. 5. Contemporary accounts emphasize Granvelle's role in this event, which was so important in Cosimo's quest for Florentine autonomy. See Mannucci, 1586, p. 87; and Baldini, 1578, p. 34, who mention Granvelle as having persuaded Charles to restore the fortresses. Cosimo and Granvelle met in Tuscany several times, in September 1541 and again in January 1542; a long letter from the duke in Florence to Bandini, 13 January 1542, begins "Mi occore dirvi come hier l'altro parti di qua monsignor di Granvela, dove è stato dua giorni" and continues to discuss the negotiations at length (ASF, M D P 4299, f. 199; for the letter, see Spini, 1945, pp. 64-68). 6. The torso, moved to Versailles under Louis XIV, is now in the Louvre (see Castan, 1881, p. 463; and idem, 1881, Mémoires, pp. 16-17). According to Van Durme (as in n. 4), p. 289, Granvelle was known for his greed, inordinate love of gifts, and taking of bribes. 7. Lapini, 1900, p. 106, gives the date of Cosimo's formal investiture as 11 August 1545. For this award, often wrongly cited as given in 1546, see Simon, 1984, pp. 67-68. 8. The Lamentation already had a frame—the one Mariotto was gilding in July (see doc. 7). It would have been very narrow (no more than 11.5 cm.) and simple, however, to be set within the illusionistic painted frames in the chapel. 9. Indirect evidence of a date before 22 October for the shipping of the altarpiece is found in A S F , Registro di spedizioni e di espressi e staffette per portar lettere ed ogetti, 1544-61 (Guardaroba Medicea 9). T h e altarpiece is not listed after 22 October; unfortunately, the pages of this

NOTES

TO

PAGES

362

7 4 - 7 7

document corresponding to the dates 18 June to piece must have been sent, have been left blank.

22

October (ff. 5 V - 1 3 V ) , during which the altar-

1 0 . Van Durme (as in n. 4 ) , pp. 2 7 4 - 7 5 , gives the dates of Granvelle's absence. Granvelle's son, Antoine, the Bishop of Arras, tells of his father's serious illness in a letter of 21 October 1545 to Cardinal Farnese: "la longa et pericolosa infirmita di Mons.r de Granvella mio padre, me ha tenuto fora de corte più tempo di quello facevamo disegno nel partir nostro [di] Worms" (Madrid, Royal Palace Library ms. 2 2 5 9 ) . I owe knowledge of this letter to Edward Sanchez.

1 1 . See Castan (as in n.

4),

pp.

297-99;

idem,

1881,

Mémoires, pp.

18-19.

See Castan, 1881, Mémoires, pp. 3 7 - 4 0 , for the contract of 18 November 1 5 4 9 , in which every part of the proposed structure is detailed. See also Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, Recueil Boisot, ff. 3 2 5 - 3 2 8 V , "Traité concernant la chapelle sépulcrale contiguë à l'église des Carmes de Besancon, que Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle et sa femme projetaient de construire . . . 1 0 Janvier 1 5 5 0 . " 12.

13.

See Castan (as in n.

4),

pp.

297-99;

idem,

1881,

p.

464;

idem,

1881,

Mémoires, pp.

21-23.

1 4 . Panel; 2 . 6 8 X 1 . 7 3 m. For this work, see Castan, 1 8 8 1 , Mémoires, pp. 2 6 - 3 2 ; and Le seizième siècle européen: Peintures et dessins dans les collections publiques françaises, Paris, Petit Palais, 1965, p. 40. A portrait of the patron as the companion of Joseph and Nicodemus has been substituted for Bronzino's portrait of Pontormo (for which, see Chapter 6).

15. See Castan, 1881, Mémoires, p. 23. 1 6 . See R. Tournier, Les eglises comtoises, Paris, chapel, with a diagram of it.

1954,

pp.

271-73,

on the architecture of the

1 7 . Besancon, Musée des Beaux-Arts 7 9 9 . 1 . 2 9 . The panel measures 2 . 6 8 X 1 . 7 3 m. and is signed on the rock to the lower right: OPERA DEL BRONZINO FIORENTINO. It was cleaned by Lanceron in 1 8 3 6 - 3 8 , when a strip measuring 6 . 5 cm. was added at the bottom of the panel (see L. Clément de Ris, Les Musées de Province, Paris, 1 8 6 1 , II, pp. 3 8 - 4 0 ) ; by Gouliant in 1 9 3 5 ; by Aubert in 1956. It was restored by Michel in 1965 and cleaned again by Huvelin in 1971. Since Castan ( 1 8 8 1 , pp. 4 6 0 - 6 4 ; idem, 1 8 8 1 , Mémoires; idem, Musée de Besancon: Catalogue des peintures, dessins, sculptures et antiquités, Besancon, 1 8 8 6 , pp. 3 7 - 3 8 ) assembled the documentation for Bronzino's execution of the altarpiece, its date of 1545 has never been questioned. See also Besançon, Palais de Justice, Exposition de tableaux, 1831, no. 25; Furno, 1902, p. 39; L. Gonse, Les chefsd'oeuvre des musées de France: La peinture, Paris, 1900, p. 66; Poggi, 1909; Goldschmidt, 1 9 1 1 , p. 5 1 ; Schulze, 1 9 1 1 , p. v; Schaeffer, 1 9 1 1 , p. 60; J. Magnin, La peinture et le dessin au Musée de Besançon, Dijon, 1919, p. 270; Tinti, 1920, pp. 9-10; Voss, 1920, I, p. 217; McComb, 1928, p. 46; Venturi, 1 9 3 3 , pp. 4 - 5 , 4 8 - 4 9 ; G. Gazier, Besancon: Son musée et ses collections d'art, MulhouseDornach, 1935, p. 8; L'art italien de Cimabue à Tiepolo, Paris, Petit Palais, 1935, no. 49; Becherucci, 1 9 4 4 , pp. 4 5 - 4 6 ; idem, 1 9 4 9 , p. 4 ; Zeri, 1 9 5 2 , p. 5 7 ; Besancon, le plus ancien musée de France, Paris, Musée des arts décoratifs, 1 9 5 7 , no. 2 5 ; Emiliani, I 9 6 0 , pp. 6 6 , 7 3 , text to pis. 5 3 - 5 4 ; idem, 1 9 6 1 , pp. 1 2 7 , 1 3 4 - 3 5 ; Berenson, 1 9 6 3 , I, p. 4 1 ; Freedberg, 1 9 6 5 , p. 1 9 3 ; Le siezième siècle, 1 9 6 5 (as in n. 14), no. 49; Emiliani, 1966, text to pis. X - X I ; Levey, 1967, pp. 5 - 6 ; Cox-Rearick, 1971, pp. 8 - 9 ; Freedberg, 1 9 7 1 , p. 2 9 9 ; Bac. no. 4 7 ; Hall, 1 9 7 9 , pp. 4 1 - 4 3 ; All.&Cec., p. 2 4 ; McCorquodale, 1 9 8 1 , pp. 8 4 - 8 7 ; Simon, 1 9 8 4 , pp. 7 0 - 7 2 ; and Cox-Rearick, 1 9 8 9 .

18. Vas.CdL, V I I I , pp. 1 8 - 1 9 (Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 597). 19. Adelson, 1985, p. 162, in contrast, believes that the original wings were removed when the Lamentation was exported in 1545 and that they were not rehung until 1553, when Bronzino's replica was ready.

NOTES

TO

PAGES

363

77~79

20. I have traced Bronzino's panels as far as 1660 ( A S F , G u a r d a r o b a Medicea 189, f. 4) but found no reference to them after that date. 2 1 . Inv. 7 3 . P A . 7 0 . T h e panel was restored in 1 9 8 7 by Y v o n n e S z a f r a n , w h o kindly provided these c o m m e n t s on its condition: Cleaning and restoration have revealed the picture to be in fair condition. T h e largest losses of paint occur in the blue background, St. John's left hand, and along the bottom edge. T h e r e is also some abrasion of the paint film, especially in the flesh tones; however, the drapery and St. John's right hand are in a remarkable state of preservation. T h e support consists of three vertical 1 V " thick pieces of poplar planks. T h e back of the panel has suffered extensive w o r m damage and there are large losses of wood, causing damage in the background, where the paint has sunken and fallen in to the left of St. John's head, creating an irregular and bumpy surface with substantial paint loss. At some point the panel was cut d o w n , removing the arch at the top. T h e cleaning revealed that Bronzino painted a black border at the top around the blue background, indicating the arched shape of the panel. T h e remnants of this border are quite damaged; however, they do provide a good indication as to the exact curve of the original arch, and allowed for the reconstruction of the panel to its present dimensions. While the left side of the panel was also cut, none of the painted surface was lost, and one can see very clearly that the original paint goes up only to an inscribed line. In fact, all that has been lost on this side is a gessoed border, which still remains on the panel's right side. Whether this border was originally wider or not is hard to tell. A size layer between the gesso and the paint is clearly evident if one looks at this original gessoed strip on the right edge of the panel, where the darkened blue layer can be seen clearly. [This practice is mentioned by Vasari in Vasari on Technique,

trans.

L . S. Maclehose, N e w York, 1907, p. 230.] T h i s layer may have caused some of the paint loss, as many of the losses, especially in the red drapery, involve loss of the paint layer only, leaving the original ground. I w o u l d add that the replacement for St. John in the chapel, the angel of the Annunciation, measures 1 . 5 2 x 0.55 cm. T h e Getty panel (1.47 x 0.52 m.) would thus seem to have been cut d o w n 5 cm. in height and 3 cm. in width. F o r St. John, see Zeri, 1 9 5 2 , w h o discovered the w o r k in 1948 in the D u d l e y Wallis Collection, L o n d o n . T h e picture was sold at Sotheby's in 1 9 5 1 , entering the N e u h a u s Collection in L i m a , f r o m w h i c h it was sold in 1 9 7 3 to the present o w n e r by G . A l g r a n t i , Milan. Zeri recognized the St. John f r o m Vasari's description as the lost left w i n g of Bronzino's altarpiece, dating it 1 5 4 5 as painted just before the Lamentation.

See also Fontainebleau

e la

maniera italiana, N a p l e s , 1 9 5 2 , no. 1 2 ; Emiliani, i960, pp. 7 3 , 8 1 , text opp. pi. 5 5 ; C o x - R e a r i c k , 1 9 7 1 , pp. 9, 1 1 ; G . A l g r a n t i , Selezione

1973,

Milan, Palazzo V i g o n i - M a i n o p i , 1 9 7 3 , no. 7 7 (the

picture connected with the entries in G u a r d a r o b a Medicea 28 and 4 5 , m y docs. 2 0 - 2 1 ) ; B. N i c o l son, " C u r r e n t and F o r t h c o m i n g Exhibitions," Burl., pp. 1 6 6 - 6 7 ;

an

1 1 5 , 1 9 7 3 , p. 404; Bac. no. 48; Cheney, 1 9 7 3 ,

d A l l . & C e c . , p. 2 5 . Beck, 1 9 7 2 , p. 1 1 , supposed incorrectly that the St. John

tioned in the 1 5 6 0 guardaroba

men-

inventory was Bronzino's St. John (Rome, Galleria Borghese), but

subsequently ( 1 9 7 4 , p. 66 n. 4) took up my suggestion that the entry referred to the St. John

now

in the G e t t y M u s e u m . 2 2 . St. Cosmas w o u l d have measured approximately 1 . 5 5 x 0 . 5 5 m., like the V i r g i n A n n u n ciate that replaced it; for this w o r k , see Zeri, 1 9 5 2 , p. 59; C o x - R e a r i c k , 1 9 7 1 , pp. 1 0 - 1 1 ; Bac. no. 49; Cheney, 1 9 7 3 , p. 1 6 7 ; and A l l . & C e c . , p. 25.

NOTES

TO

364

PACE

79

23. This portrait could have been one of the versions of Bronzino's Du\e Cosimo de' Medici (see Fig. 22), but more likely it was Eleonora di Toledo with Her Son Giovanni (see Fig. 23), which Bronzino was painting at Poggio a Caiano on 9 August 1545 (see doc. 8). 24. Conti, 1893, pp. 53, 58, and 63, notes that there is no mention in the inventory of the contents of either the two chapels or Eleonora's study. 25.

Conti,

1893,

pp.

196-99.

One item, "Una bolla di Papa Julio Secondo dove concede l'in-

dulgentia alla cappella di Santo Bernardo in palazzo," specifically alludes to the Chapel of the Priors, dedicated to S. Bernardino. 26.

See Conti,

27.

Conti,

1893,

1893,

pp.

pp.

5 6 - 6 5 ,

54,

196-97.

for the suite in

1553.

28. See Adelson, 1985, p. 161, for this type of tapestry. 29. Simon, 1984, p. 72 n. 2, quotes this letter but believes it refers to an order for another cartoon of Bronzino's first altarpiece. The antecedent of "quella" (despite its feminine ending), however, must be "panno d'altare," not the altarpiece itself, which is not mentioned in the letter and, in any event, had hung only briefly in the chapel five years earlier. 30. A S F , Guardaroba Medicea 12, f. 5V: " V ° Panno da altar di seta + oro dentrovi v.a Pietà da m. Niccola tappezzieri." For this tapestry, see Smyth, 1971, p. 92; Cheney, 1963, p. 376; and Adelson, 1 9 8 3 , p. 9 0 5 . G . G . Bertela, in Berti, 1 9 8 0 , no. 4 7 1 , gives the wrong date ( 1 5 4 9 ) for the tapestry but does suggest that it was made for one of the chapels in the Palazzo. ro

3 1 . See A S F , Guardaroba Medicea For the 1553 entry, see doc. 20.

21,

f. 42r

(15

July

1549),

quoted in Cheney,

1963,

p.

376.

32. Some years ago I mentioned my hypothesis about the use of Salviati's tapestry in Eleonora's chapel to Candace Adelson, who has come to conclusions somewhat different from mine ( 1 9 8 5 , p. 1 6 2 ; apparently, however, without knowledge of the Almeni letter—my doc. 1 7 ) . She proposes that Salviati's tapestry was designed for the Chapel of the Priors (with whose altarpiece its measurements agree) and may also have hung in Eleonora's chapel, noting that in the guardaroba inventory of 1560 (my doc. 21), it is identified as "per la Cappella." I agree that after 1553, when it was no longer needed in Eleonora's chapel, the tapestry may well have been used in the priors' chapel. 33. Wright, 1986, p. 97, proposes another substitute for the Lamentation before 1553: The Medici Madonna (Sarasota, Ringling Museum) by Lorenzo Pagni's cousin Benedetto. T h e painting, which measures 1 . 7 3 x 1 . 4 1 (or somewhat smaller than the space available in Eleonora's chapel) was presented to Duke Cosimo in May 1547 with the suggestion that it would be appropriate for one of the chapels in the Palazzo. 34. See doc. 6 for Bronzino's new salary of 12% fiorini a month (as of 1 November) for work on the tapestry cartoons, first paid on 11 November 1545. The earliest mention of Bronzino's working on a tapestry cartoon (the so-called Primavera, actually representing Dovizia; Pitti) is a memo from Riccio to Cosimo dated 16 September 1545 (ASF, M D P 613, ins. XIV, f. 25V; see Adelson, 1980, p. 147 n. 32). This tapestry was delivered 8 December 1545 (Adelson, 1983, p. 9 0 5 ) . For the dates of the Joseph cartoons, see C. Adelson, in Pal.Vec. cat. 8 0 - 8 9 . 35. Tasso was paid five scudi a month from 1 March 1549 to 5 May 1555 as "architetto alla muraglia del Palazzo" on the orders of Riccio (ASF, Fabbriche Medicee 2, debitori e creditori C, 1 5 5 2 - 7 2 , f. 4 8 ) . For his work, see All.&Cec., pp. 9 - 5 1 .

NOTES

TO

PAGES

365

7 9 - 8 4

36. T h i s is the construction referred to in Riccio's letters o f 1549 (see docs. 1 5 - 1 6 ) . T h e " c a m e r e n u o v e " a b o v e the C a m e r a Verde a n d the chapel are included in the palace inventory o f 1 5 5 3 (see C o n t i , 1893, PP-

a

' s o All.&Cec., pp. 10-11).

37. S e e V i a l e F e r r e r ò , 1963, pp. 30, 7 2 - 7 5 ; a n d A d e l s o n , 1985, p. 1 5 0 n. 1 7 . 38. S e e A S F , F a b b r i c h e M e d i c e e 2, f. 9 1 ; a n d All.&Cec., pp. 11, 5 0 - 5 1 . 39. See All.&Cec., pp. 1 5 - 1 6 . 40. Panel; 2.43 x 1.73 m . ; s i g n e d on the rock to the lower right: OPERA DEL BRONZINO FIOR. S i n c e C a s t a n ( 1 8 8 1 , pp. 4 6 0 - 6 3 ; idem, 1 8 8 1 , Mémoires,

pp. 7 - 1 1 ) first b r o u g h t the evidence to-

gether, there has been a g r e e m e n t on the d a t e o f B r o n z i n o ' s replica. F o r this picture, see C o n t i , 1893, p. 63; F u r n o , 1902, p. 45; P o g g i , 1909; S c h u l z e , 1 9 1 1 , p. xi; G o l d s c h m i d t , 1 9 1 1 , p. 54; S c h a e f f e r , 1 9 1 1 , p. 6 1 ; M c C o m b , 1928, p. 55; Venturi, 1 9 3 3 , pp. 10, 73; B e r e n s o n , 1936, p. 99; Zeri, 1 9 5 2 , pp. 5 7 - 5 8 ; E m i l i a n i , i960, p p . 66, 8 1 , text to pis. 8 6 - 8 8 ; idem, 1 9 6 1 , p. 1 2 7 ; B e r e n s o n , 1963, I, p. 42; C o x - R e a r i c k , 1 9 7 1 , p. 11; S m y t h , 1 9 7 1 , p. 54 n. 2 3 ; Bac. no. 84; H a l l , 1979, p. 47; a n d A l l . & C e c . , pp. 2 4 - 2 5 . 4 1 . V a s . C d L , V I I I , p. 22 (Vas.Mil., V I I , p. 600). 42. F o r Vasari's vast enterprises, see V a s . - R a g . , pp. 1 1 - 2 2 5 ;

an
i 5 7 2 l F > 3 7 o n l 6 Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut 5601, Fig. 186, 316; 4344, PI. 15, 101-2, 240, 242, 243, 276, 278 London, British Museum 1909-6-12-177, 370m 6 Milan, Ambrosiana, Codice Resta 48, Fig. 90, 138; 61, 37oni6 Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung 2I 47> 3 7 o n l 9 Paris, Louvre 17, Fig. 83, 1 3 2 ; 6 3 5 6 ^ Fig.

27l

Lamentation, PI. 9, 14, 78-79, 84-85, 91, 92, 185-88, 328, 330 Lamentation (Besançon), Pis. 11, 27-29, 31, Figs. 97, 113, 125-27, 11, 14, 19, 142, 145,

147, 148, 149-85, 190, 191-212, 260-65 Lamentation (after; Castrojeriz), Fig. 44, 85 Lamentation

58, 102, 122; 6356V, F i g . 1 7 1 ,

276

Paris, private coll., Fig. 80, 130 as homosexual, 324 letters, Fig. 45, 79-80, 87-88, 156, 328, 329, 33°> 355n53> 3^9n7; to Varchi, 114, 116, 125 paintings Allegory of Happiness, 402n5Ó Allegory of Venus, Fig. 11, 12, 94, 178, 184, 272, 280, 375m Christ in Limbo, Figs. 10, 140, 187, 11, 85, 94, 147, 188, 203, 207, 212, 313, 323, 386nÓ4,4i5ni2 Dead Christ with the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene, Fig. 93, 149, 152, 184, 263 Evangelist tondi, 15 Holy Family (London, Vienna), 193, 382ni3

(after; Pierre d'Argent), 78,

385n53 Moses Striding the Rock and the Gathering of Manna, Pis. 4, 8, 25, 26, Figs. 42, 82, 85, 14, 62, 67, 72, 73, 90, 120, 130-38, 140, 143, 146, 147, 193, 214, 222-27, 232> 2 9 9 300 putti, Pis. 20-21, Figs. 59-60, 63, 107-12,

117-18, 241, 279, 280 restorations, 3 6 8 ^ 7 St. Cosmas, 14, 79, 149, 266-70, 330 St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, Pis. 5, 17, 13, 62, 71, 101, 224, 242, 243-47 St. Jerome in Penitence, Pis. 5, 18, Fig. 57, 13, 62, 79, 100, 101-2, 105, 242-43 St. John the Baptist, PI. 10, Fig. 91, 14, 79, 147-49, 191, 265-66, 268-70, 330 St. John the Evangelist, Pis. 5, 19, 13, 62, 71, 101, 242 St. Michael Fighting the Devil, Pis. 5, 16, 13, 62, 71, 101, 102, 105, 309, 317, 318 Trinity, PI. 5, Fig. 46, 88, 248

Holy Family (Uffizi), 113, 149 Holy Family (Washington), Fig. 64, 107, 134,149 Lamentation (Accademia), Fig. 108, 162, i88,386n6 4 Man of Sorrows with Two Angels, 368^ Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo, Figs. 47, 143, 94, 160, 209-12

G E N E R A L

434

INDEX

Eleonora di Toledo (workshop; Washington), 357 n 73 Eleonora di Toledo with Her Son Francesco

Nativity (Budapest), Fig. 55, 101,117,120, 137, 146 Nativity (Pisa), 87-88, 188 Noli me tangere, 186 Pietà (S. Croce), 198 Pietà with Angels, Fig. 49, 96,152,192 Pygmalion and Galatea, 118 Raising of the Daughter ofJairus, 186 Resurrection, 85, 94, 188, 198 St. Benedict Tempted in the Wilderness, Fig.

(workshop), Fig. 26, 42, 321 Eleonora di Toledo with Her Son Giovanni, Fig. 23,37,149, 254,259,321 Francesco de' Medici (Uffizi), 35Ón6o Morgante, 372^9 Sculptor, 118 Unknown Gentleman (Ottawa), 118 Young Man (London), 118 Youth with a Lute, 118 portraits of, Figs. 1, 135-40, 143, 1, 204-7,

48.94 St. John the Baptist (Rome), 3641121, 4001130 St. Sebastian, Fig. 67, 113 paintings (lost) Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, 368113 Dispute of Duke Alessandro de' Medici with the Exiles at Naples, 31, 96 Madonna and Child (after Leonardo), 86 Marriage-by-Proxy of Duke Cosimo, 31, 96 Noli me tangere, 368n3 Victories of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, 266, 3Ó9n6 Villa Imperiale (Pesaro), 96 wedding apparato of Cosimo de' Medici, 3, 31, 71, 266 painting technique fresco, 66-68, 132, 140-44 oil, 148-49,181-82, 184, 209, 38in63 payments to, 68, 70, 74, 87, 88, 327, 330, 3611133, 3 6 5 n 3 4 poetry, 374n66 rime in burla, 280 sonnets, 105, 106, 3 7 1 ^ 4 to Eleonora di Toledo, 51 portraits

209, 212 tapestries, 57, 74, 82, 84, 119 Allegory of the Dynasty of Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo, Fig. 107, 160, 279, 403n6i Benjamin Received by Joseph, Fig. 86, 135, 292 Dovizia (Pitti), 365^4 Jacob Blessing Joseph's Children, Fig. 176, 292 Joseph Fleeing Potiphar's Wife, Fig. 69, 119, 291 Joseph in Prison and the Pharaoh's Banquet, PI. 33, 128, 291,324 Justice Liberating Innocence, Fig. 103, 146, 160, 274,310 Selling of Joseph, Fig. 105, 160, 291 Story of Joseph, Fig. 5, 6, 10, 57, 84, 94, 120, 146, 253, 254, 256, 291-92, 294, 302 and sculpture, 107, 112-18, 121-23, 125-26, 129-30, 134, 137, 147 travels Pesaro, 96 Rome, 96, 137 and Varchi, 386064 Brown, David Alan, 374n6o Brunelleschi, Filippo: Barbadori (Capponi) Chapel, Fig. 14, 73, 100 Bugiardini, Giuliano: Francesco Guicciardini, 286 Buontalenti, Bernardo, 383n29 Butteri, Francesco Maria, Madonna and Saints, Fig. 163, 261

Andrea Doria as Neptune, 113, 378^3 Cosimo de' Medici (London), Fig. 22, 37, 254,268 Cosimo de' Medici (Uffizi), PI. 1, 12, 36, 254, 267, 268, 275 Cosimo de' Medici (workshop; Turin), 357n73 Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo (after), Fig. 170, 275 Cosimo de' Medici as Orpheus, Fig. 19, 33, 117,137, 259, 280, 377n24 Eleonora di Toledo (Berlin), Fig. 29, 46 Eleonora di Toledo (Prague), PI. 2, 12, 23,

Camerini, Giovanni, 75 cangianti, 142, 143, 184

36, 37, 42, 46, 254, 259, 264, 275 Eleonora di Toledo (replica; lost), 86

G E N E R A L

435

I N D E X

Capi rossi, 298

Cione, N a r d o di: Lamentation (Uffizi), 383nn25,

Capponi, Piero di Gino, 353n20

28

Cardinal Virtues, 272-73

Clement V I I (pope [Giulio de' Medici]), 299

Caro, Annibale, 3 6 1 ^ 5

Clovio, Giulio: Eleonora di Toledo, Fig. 165,

Castagno, Andrea del: Uomini illustri, 278

264

Cellini, Benvenuto, 157

C o c k , Hieronymous: engraving after Bronzi-

letter to Varchi, 114, 115

no's Crossing of the Red Sea, Fig. 155, 231,

medals

4i4n8i

Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers, 292

Colle, Raffaellino dal, 3Ó8n4

Moses Striding the Rock, Fig- 177, 299

Colonna, Camillo, 354n43

P°etry, 3701121,3711134

Constantine (emperor), 305, 309

portraits of, Fig. 8, 9

Conte, Jacopino del: Preaching of St. John the

sculptures

Baptist, Fig. i n , 2, 137, 166

Cosimo de' Medici, 254, 258, 276, 279

Cope, Maurice E., 228

Perseus, Fig. 7, 6, 254, 302, 305, 396m5

Corteccia, Francesco, 30, 31 Corti, Gino, 327

chapels

Cortona, Elias of, 246

Capponi, S. Felicita, Fig. 14, 15, 73 Chateau de la Bastie d'Urfé, 214, 219

Council of Trent, 188, 382m 9, 3 9 4 ^ 5

C o s i m o de' Medici, Palazzo Vecchio, Fig. 16,

Covenants (Old and New), 213, 223, 237, 246, 295

18,228,286 N e w Sacristy, S. Lorenzo, 254

Cross, Alison, 4i6nn9, 10

Novitiates, S. Croce, 15, 239 O l d Sacristy, S. Lorenzo, 239 Palazzo Medici, Fig. 13, 15, 140, 155, 261 Pisa cathedral, 214-15, 219

Danti, Vincenzo, sculptures

Pope's, S. Maria Novella, 409n2Ó

Brazen Serpent, Fig. 175, 284

Pregadi, Venice, 230

Cosimo de' Medici as Joshua, Fig. 173, 283,

Priors, Palazzo Vecchio, Fig. 15, 15, 17, 57,

3I°>3I3

73, 81, 90, 155, 228, 238, 3Ó5nn25, 32, 402n47

David (king), 190, 194, 271

of the Sacrament, 214, 228, 3 8 9 ^ 8 , 4 1 2 ^ 9

Dini, Daniella, 3 6 1 ^ 1

St. Luke, at SS. Annunziata, 205, 283, 402n54

Dini, Giovanni, 3Ö6n45

S. G i a c o m o dall'Orio, Venice, 228

Dionigi di Matteo, 88, 330

S. Giovanni Evangelista, Brescia, 3 9 0 ^ 8

disegno, 116, 125-26, 157, 178, 180, 182

Sistine, Rome, 219, 224, 230, 295, 313,

Domenichi, Ludovico: Nobiltà delle donne, 42 Domenico, Santi di, 330

39ln59> 3 9 3 n l °

Dominican order, 263

Villa Cafaggiolo, 15

Donatello

Charles V (emperor), 75, 76, 85, 174, 255, 295 and the baptism of Francesco de' Medici, 315

Joshua, 313

and Cosimo de' Medici, 22, 23, 29, 30, 256,

Lamentation (S. Lorenzo), Fig. 122, 173, 174—

258, 277

75-

eagle of, 276, 277, 278, 295

20

3

St. John the Evangelist reliefs, 239

entry into Florence, 2

Doni, Anton Francesco, 90

and the Florentine fortresses, 34, 35, 258, 278

Donnino, Antonio di: The Taking of Monte -

patronage, 174

murlo, 303

portrait of, 30

Dossi, Battista and Dosso, 3Ö8n4

Chigi, Agostino, 280

Dürer, Albrecht

Christus, Petrus: Lamentation, 200

Entombment (Large Passion), 196, 199

Cibò, Caterina, 3 5 4 ^ 6

Entombment (Small Passion), 3 8 4 ^ 4

Cini, Giovanni Battista, 51 ; Descrizione

Lamentation (Small Passion), Fig. 131, 198,

dell'apparato, 52, 253

383^8

G E N E R A L

436

I N D E X

Foschi, Pierfrancesco: Giovanni delle Bande

Mass of St. Gregory (woodcut), 3841135

Nere Taking Biagrassa, 303

Trinity (woodcut), 3841135

Francis, St., 239, 240, 242, 2 4 5 - 4 7 , 317, 393ni2 Francis I (king of France), 12 E m p o l i , Jacopo da: Lamentation

Franciscan order, 246

(after Pon-

Franco, Battista, 2

tormo), Fig. 96, 3761110

Battle ofMontemurlo

Erythraean Sibyl, 191, 271, 3 8 1 ^

with the Rape of

Ganymede, Fig. 179, 303-4

Este, A l f o n s o d' (duke), 400m 9

Gathering of Manna, Fig. 145, 214, 223

Eucharist (theme in art), 192-94, 214, 217, 222-

w e d d i n g apparato of C o s i m o de' Medici,

28, 232, 242, 248, 299

29

Eusebius, 305

Fròschl, Daniel: Eleonora di Toledo (copy),

399n9 fuorusciti,

Falconieri, Carlo, 91

255, 258

Farnese, Alessandro, 223, 3 6 7 ^ 5 Farnese, Ottavio, 23 Farnese family, 75

Gamberelli, Bernardo, 350

Fedeli, V i n c e n z o , 49, 283

Garbo, Raffaellino del, 70; Lamentation (Munich), 382n7

Feltrini, A n d r e a di C o s i m o , 35on3, 3 6 2 M

Gaston, Robert W., 3 7 8 ^ 4

festivals (apparati)

Gelli, Giambattista, 353n24

baptisms Filippo de' Medici, 216

and the A c c a d e m i a Fiorentina, 252, 287

Francesco de' Medici, 216, 254, 279, 289,

Apparato et feste, 29, 31, 253, 277, 278, 288, 300, 303, 322

315

and the A r a m e i , 287-88, 290, 322

G a r z i a de' Medici, 40, 216

and Bronzino, 323-24

entries Charles V into Florence, 2

and the C h a p e l of Eleonora, 321-22, 324-25

C o s i m o de' Medici and Eleanora di Toledo

Dell'origine

di Firenze, 288, 290, 322

Eclogue, 287-88

into R o m e , 49

poetry, 252, 279, 315, 319, 325, 4 oon23

C o s i m o de' Medici and Eleonora di

poetry to, 324

Toledo into Siena, 4 7 - 4 8 , 49

portraits of, PL 33, Fig. 187, 323-24

Eleonora di Toledo into Florence, 29-30

G e n g a , Girolamo, 3Ó8n4

funerals

Ghirlandaio, D o m e n i c o , 142

C o s i m o de' Medici, 395n3

Calling of SS. Peter and Andrew, 120, 230

Eleonora di Toledo, 5 0 - 5 1

Madonna and Saints (lost), 392n3

marriages Alessandro de' Medici and Margaret of

St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata, Fig. 159, 2 43

Austria, 3 C o s i m o de' Medici and Eleonora di

Sassetti Chapel, 38in4

Toledo, 3, 2 9 - 3 1 , 42, 250, 253, 254, 256,

Ghirlandaio, Michele di Ridolfo, 35Ón55

258, 259, 266, 268, 2 8 8 - 8 9 , 3 1 3 , 3 22 > 3 2 4

Madonna with SS. John the Baptist and Cos-

Francesco de' Medici and Giovanna

mas, 269-70

d ' A u s t r i a , 52, 253, 4 0 4 ^

w e d d i n g apparato of C o s i m o de' Medici, 29

Fiammingo, Luigi, 3 5 5 ^ 9

Ghirlandaio, Ridolfo, 2

Figueroa (commendator o f C o s i m o de' Medici),

C a m e r a Verde, Fig. 32, 59, 277 Chapel of the Priors, Fig. 15, 1 5 - 1 6

77

Lamentation,

figura serpentinata, 137, 147

382n7

w e d d i n g apparato of C o s i m o de' Medici, 29

Forlì, M e l o z z o da: Sacristy of St. Mark (Lo-

G i a m b o l o g n a , 37in29

reto), 3 6 9 m 2

Giambullari, Bernardo, 352ni6

Forster, K u r t W., 258

GENERAL

437

INDEX

Revelation, 241, 242, 393m 2

Giambullari, Pierfrancesco, 27, 3521116 and the Accademia Fiorentina, 252, 287, 322

Jonah,217

Apparato et feste, 27, 29, 31, 253, 322

Joseph, 291-92

and the A r a m e i , 287, 290, 322

Joshua, 234-36, 241, 283

and Bronzino, 323 canon of S. Lorenzo, 290 and the Chapel of Eleonora, 321-22, 324

Karcher, Nicholas, 82

II Gello, 287, 290, 322

Kraft, A d a m : Entombment,

384^1

portraits of, Fig. 187, 323-24 giornate, 66-68, 143 Giovane, Palma: S. G i a c o m o dall'Orio, 228

Lactantius, 191

Giovanna d'Austria, 52, 88, 90

Lainez, Giacomo, 45,46

Giovio, Paolo, 90, 251, 268, 355n52, 361035;

Lapini, Agostino, 50 Lavin, Marilyn A., 3 9 2 ^ 3 , 3 9 3 m s

Medici imprese, 43-45, 271 Giulio Romano, 2

League of Cambrai, 305

GofFen, Rona, 393ni8

Leo X (pope [Giovanni de' Medici]), 22, 37, 261, 269, 295; patronage, 254, 256, 4 0 7 ^ 4 , 4 0 9 ^ 6

G o m b r i c h , Ernst W., 251 G o n z a g a , Eleonora, 3 5 4 ^ 6

Levey, Michael, 239

G o z z o l i , Benozzo

Lippi, Filippino

O l d Testament cycle (Pisa), 219, 224, 230

Moses Striking the Rock,

Procession of the Magi, Fig. 13, 15, 140, 261,

Strozzi Chapel, 305

38913!

Lippo, Filippo

310 Granvelle, Antoine de, 78, 3Ó3nio, 3 8 5 ^ 3

Madonna and Saints (Uffìzi), 15

Granvelle, Nicolas Perrenot de, 7 5 - 7 7 , 3Ó2n4

Nativity (Berlin), 15 Seven Saints, 398m

grazia, 127, 179, 182, 185, 200, 373n5i

Loyola, Ignazio di, 46

G r a z z i n i , Anton Francesco (Il Lasca); 280, 287,

Luna, Giovanni de', 3 9 8 ^ 4

324 Grifoni, Ugolino, 45, 157 Guadagni, Giovanni, 358n87

M c C o m b , Arthur, 120

G u z m à n , D i e g o de, 45, 46, 49

Machiavelli, Niccolò Discorsi, 297,4i2n66 II Principe, 296-98, 300, 308

Hall, Marcia, 184 Heath, Samuel K., 3 6 6 ^ 3

Maeder, Edward, 383n26, 411047

H e i k a m p , Detlef, 3 8 9 ^ 6

Maiano, Benedetto da: Justice, F i g . 2, 274

Hieronymite order, 239, 243

Maniera, 1, 3, 6, 101, 105, 118, 123, 127, 137, 138,

Holderbaum, James, 118, 284, 372n42

142, 200, 235, 349n2, 3 7 0 m 7

Holy W o m e n , 398n7

Mannucci, A l d o , 51

H o o d , William, 390n40

Mantovano, Camillo, 36804 Margaret of Austria, 3, 22, 23 Mariotto di Francesco Mettidoro, 74, 328

invenzione,

Martelli, Niccolò, 252; poetry, 20, 22, 268, 350

178

Martini, Luca, 252, 284, 323, 377n2o Master of the Manchester Madonna, 4 : ^ 7 4 Medici, Agnolo Marzi de', 155, 327, 3 6 1 ^ 3 ,

Jacone (Jacopo di Giovanni di Francesco):

377n2i

Stories of Moses, 219 Jerome, St., 239, 242, 243

Medici, Alessandro de' (duke), 2, 277

Jesuit order, 45

murder, 22, 255, 282

John the Baptist, St., 191

wedding apparato, 3

John the Evangelist, St., 239

Medici, Alfonsina Orsini de', 352m 6

Gospel, 193, 194, 222, 242

Medici, Anna di Cosimo de', 4i3n78

G E N E R A L

438

I N D E X

as Joshua, 283, 310, 313 as Jupiter, 45, 255 later years, 52 legitimacy (theme in art), 255-56 and Leo X, 254, 256

Medici, Antonio de', 397n24 Medici, Bernardo Antonia de' (bishop of Forlì), 157 Medici, Carlo de', 3 6 6 ^ 5 Medici, Chiarissimo de', 26, 3 9 8 ^ 4 Medici, Cosimo I de' (duke, then grand duke) abdication, 52, 86 as Abraham, 291 and the Accademia Fiorentina, 252 as Aeneas, 314 ancestry, 22, 31, 239, 255, 256 apartment. See Palazzo Vecchio as Apollo, 255, 279 and the Aramei, 287-88 as architect of the state, 275-76 artistic/cultural advisers to, 19, 252, 287 and astrology, 256, 271-72, 302-3, 395n3 as Augustus, 255, 258, 259, 286, 302-3, 404m,

letters, 23, 26, 28, 50, 54, 76-77, 156, 320, 327, 328, 329, 350, 362n5, 366n 4 7, 3 7 7 ^ 1 , 397 n 33 and Lorenzo il Magnifico, 254 and Machiavelli, 296, 300 marriage-by-proxy, 23-24, 26 medals, 254, 305 medico, 259, 300 and the Mendozas, 85 as Moses, 286, 287, 294-319 passim move to Palazzo Vecchio, 54 in Naples, 22, 23, 31 as Neptune, 300 as Noah, 286, 288-89, 29°> 292> 3*5 Order of the Golden Fleece, 47, 75, 355n49, 403n6i

41ln49 burial, 358n86 chapel. See Palazzo Vecchio and the Chapel of Eleonora di Toledo, 18-19, 68, 71, 79-80, 85, 88 and Charles V, 22, 34, 35, 75, 255, 258, 277, 303-4, 405-20 coat of arms, 30,40, 59, 82, 88, 276-78, 279, 280 coinage, 269 and Cosimo de' Medici il Vecchio, 268, 269 as David, 283 destiny (theme in art), 256 devices, 268, 271-72, 303, 40gn24 diplomatic gifts, 12, 75-77, 85 and Eleonora di Toledo, 23,33 elevation to duke, 22, 255, 258 elevation to grand duke, 52 entry into Rome, 49 entry into Siena, 48 and the Florentine fortresses, 35, 75, 258, 278 fortuna, 2.71-71 and the Franciscans, 4i3nn77, 79 funeral orations, 4 0 4 ^ 9 and the fuorusciti, 305-7 as Ganymede, 304 and Giovanni di Cosimo de' Medici, 37, 269 and Granvelle, 75-77, 3 6 2 ^ as Hercules, 258, 272, 286, 4 0 1 ^ 5 historians to, 251, 252, 257 illness, 34, 52 imperial privilegio, 392n5 as Joseph, 286, 289-92

patronage,

passim, 33, 36, 37, 56-57, 84,

85. 96» "5> Passim< 9,361^3, n 4'3 77 and the piagnoni, 298 poetry to, 268, 278, 288, 300, 303, 400n23 political agenda, 34, 37, 46, 54, 75, 251, 252, 255, 256, 258, 286, 397n23 portraits of, PL 1, Figs. 8, 19, 22, 30, 100, 163, 164, 170, 173, 174, 182, 9, 12, 33, 36, 37, 43, 46-47, 52, 117, 137, 159, 254,258, 259, 261, 266-68, 270, 271, 274, 275-76, 280, 283, 292, 300, 313, 377nn2i, 24, 397n25, 4021156, 4°4 n 4' 4°7 n 33 power (theme in art), 258 promise (theme in art), 259 as St. Comas, 265, 266-70, 300 as Solomon, 283 travels in Tuscany, 33-34, 35 treatises dedicated to, 273, 288,309, 4 0 2 ^ 4 victory at Montemurlo. See battles Medici, Cosimo I de' (duke, then grand duke) (continued) virtù, 271-72, 283 wedding apparato. See festivals Medici, Cosimo de' (il Vecchio, Pater Patriae), 261, 268, 269, 291 patronage, 15, 239 portraits of, 261, 267, 400nn24, 26 Medici, Eleonora di Toledo de'. See Toledo, Eleonora di

GENERAL

439

INDEX

return (topos), 256, 257, 291, 292 use of porphyry, 278 villas. See villas Meditations on the Life of Christ, 193, 196 Meiss, Millard, 243 Meller, Peter, 3 7 2 ^ 0 Mendelsohn, Leatrice, 416m 3 Mendoza, Diego Hurtado Diaz de and Francisco, 85

Medici, Ferdinando I de' (cardinal, then grand duke), 41, 50, 84, 261, 290 Medici, Filippo di Francesco de', 216 Medici, Francesco I de' (grand duke), 50, 86 baptism, 216, 254, 279, 315 b i r t h , 33, 314, 3 1 8 - 1 9 , 325

horoscope, 4 i 2 n 7 i marriage, 52, 88 poetry to, 279,315,319 portraits of, Fig. 26, 42, 261, 321 in Vasari's Ragionamenti, 251 Medici, Garzia di Cosimo de', 40,49, 50, 216, 4i3n78 Medici, Giovanni de' (delle Bande Nere), 22, 255, 269, 4 i 2 - i 3 n 7 3 ; portraits of PI. io, Figs. 4,

Menzocchi, Francesco, 3 6 8 ^ Michael, St., 239, 241, 246 Michelangelo, 60,96, 114, 115, 159, 3 8 0 ^ 5 cartoons: Noli me tangere and Venus and Cupid, 1 color, 142, 143 drawings

166-67, 4 , 1 0 , 57, 157, 254, 2 6 5 - 6 6

Florence, Uffizi 598E, Fig. 75, 1, 127-28 Last Judgment (copy), 37on2i Windsor Castle 12767^ 3 7 3 ^ 4 painting: Doni tondo, 142, 182 poetry to, 105-6 portrait of, 201 sculptures

Medici, Giovanni di Bicci de', 239 Medici, Giovanni di Cosimo de', 17, 33, 49, 50, 269, 355n53> 4 r 3 n 7 8 ; portraits of, Fig. 23, 37 Medici, Giovanni di Lorenzo de'. See Leo X Medici, Giuliano de', 4 0 1 ^ 8 Medici, Ippolito de', 398n7 Medici, Isabella di Cosimo de', 33, 261, 4 ^ 7 8 Medici, Jacopo de', 23, 26, 350 Medici, Lorenzino de', 255, 282 Medici, Lorenzo de' (il Magnifico), 37, 254, 256,

David, 286,405nio Madonna of the Stairs, ^ny^ Moses, Fig. 70, 121, 191, 295, 300 New Sacristy, 1, 254, 37on2i Pietà (St. Peter's), Fig. 98, 152, 168, 193,

261, 269, 298

Medici, Lorenzo de' (the younger), 296 Medici, Lucrezia di Cosimo de', 398ni9, 4'3n78 Medici, Lucrezia Salviati de', 261 Medici, Maria di Cosimo de', 33, 54 Medici, Maria Salviati de'. See Salviati de Medici, Maria Medici, Ottaviano de', 273 Medici, Piero di Cosimo de', 15, 261 Medici, Pietro di Cosimo de', 41, 47, 4 1 3 ^ 8 Medici, Tanai de', 74 Medici family (see Fig. 17, genealogy) devices laurel (broncone), 37, 256, 268, 277, 278-79, 353n3o, 4 0 0 ^ 4 palle, 40, 43, 276, 277, 278-79, 292 snake, 316, 409n29 given names, 269 Golden Age, 256, 259, 278, 286, 288, 290, 291, 295> 3T4> 3 1 5 and the Magi, 15, 261 palace. See palaces patron saints, 239, 261, 266-71 passim,

382nni5, 18

Pietà with Nicodemus

and the

Magdalene,

201

Victory, Fig. 88, 1, 105, 137 Sistine Chapel frescoes, 60, 96 Ancestors of Christ, 142-43 Brazen Serpent, Fig. 73, 124, 228 Creation of Adam, 121 ignudi, Fig. 61, 107 Jonah,107 Sibyls, 38in4 Michelozzo, 201 Church of the Zoccoli di S. Francesco, 239 Palazzo Medici chapel, Fig. 13, 15, 140 Migna, Andrea del, 159 Misuroni, Gasparo, mito etrusco, 287-90 Montepulciano, Andrea Mancinelli da, 361 n37 Montorsoli, Giovanni Angelo: St. Cosmas, 409n28 Morel, Philippe, 280 Morgante (Medici servant), 42, 405n9

392^,

M o s e s , 2 1 7 - 3 7 , 294-319/XMii/n

398m

GENERAL

44°

INDEX

paragone, 36, 114-18, 137, 147 Parmigianino, il, 2; Rocca di Fontanellato, 3Ó9nio Paul, St., 213, 216, 217, 224, 229 Paul III (pope), 23 Paul IV (pope), 4o8n8 Pax Augustae, 259 Pax Medicea, 54, 313 Pazzi, Alamanno de', 3 6 6 ^ 5 Pazzi, Alfonso de', 324, 3 8 5 ^ 8 Perondini, Pietro, 358n87 Perugino, Pietro: Lamentation (Pitti), Fig. 94, 151, 179, 195, 198, 199, 200, 263 Pescia, Fra Mariano da: Madonna with SS. John and Elizabeth, Fig. 15, 17 piagnoni, 256, 298 Piccolomini, Francesco Bandini, 4o8n5 Pilliod, Elizabeth, 378n29, 386nn62, 68 Pino, Paolo: Dialogo di pittura, 140-41 Pisano, Andrea: Baptistery doors, 272 Pitti, Jacopo, 395n9 Pius IV (pope), 49 Pocetti, Bernardo: Triumphs of David, 404n4 Poggi, Giovanni, 30on2i Poggini, Domenico: medal of Eleonora di Toledo, Fig. 28, 45 Polo, Domenico di: medals of Cosimo de' Medici, 254, 305, 377n24, 400nn24, 26 Pontormo, Jacopo da, 2, 114, 180 Capponi Chapel Annunciation,Fig. 14, 15, 73, 143 God the Father and Patriarchs, 15, 100 Lamentation-Entombment, Figs. 14, 99, 15, 152-53, 182, 183, 201, 203, 209 St. John, 147 drawings Florence, Uffizi 458, Fig. 52, 98; 6528F, 377n24> 66 44 Fr, Fig. 53, 98; 6749F, Fig. 87, 135, 289; 8966S, Fig. 54, 100 London, British Museum 1974-4-6-36, 4o6n24 paintings Lamentation (Certosa), Fig. 96, 143, 151, 195, 198, 383n28 St. John the Evangelist and St. Michael, 149 S. Lorenzo choir, Fig. 6, 6, 10, 115, 159, 211, 254, 289-90, 292, 322 Story of Joseph, 292, 386nÓ9 Vertumnus and Pomona, 107, 278 Villa Castello, 3, 98, 254, 272 Visitation (Carmignano), 316

Nardi, Jacopo de', 296 Neghittosa, Dionigi di Matteo della, 3661148 Nerli, Filippo de', 251, 252, 290-91, 296, 300 Niccolò dell'Arca: Compianto (Bologna), 384^1 Nicodemus, 194, 195, 196, 200, 201 Noah, 287, 288, 322

Orcula sibyllina, 191 Orsini, Paolo, 261 Ottimati, 256

Pace, Gian Paolo: Giovanni delle Bande Nere, 266 Pagni, Benedetto: Medici Madonna, 365033, 403^0 Pagni, Christiano, 329, 353m 8, 3Ógn7 Pagni, Lorenzo, 27, 56, 80, 322; letters, 46, 49, 55. 75. 7 6 . l88 > 253> 328> 350n5> 35 2 n I 2 > 355 n 44>359 n6 palaces Palazzo Medici, 15, 30-31, 54, 55, 392n2 Palazzo Pitti, 41, 90, 159 Palazzo Vecchio, Figs. 12, 20, 13, 33,41, 5456, 84, 35onio Apartment of Cosimo de' Medici, 55, 57, 59, 68,81 Apartment of Eleonora di Toledo, Figs. 2

5.3 2_ 33> J9> 33> 41» 55.57' 59- 8o> 8l > 84> 91, 92, 97, 279, 360m 6 Apartment of the Elements, 84 Camera Verde, Fig. 32, 42, 57, 58, 59, 72, 80 Chapel of Cosimo de' Medici, Figs. 16, 50, 228, 269, 286 Chapel of Eleonora, Pis. 3-4, 57-92. See also Bronzino, Chapel of Eleonora di Toledo Chapel of the Priors, Fig. 15, 15, 17, 57, 73, 81, 90, 155, 228, 238,3Ó5nn25, 32,402^7 guardaroba, 55, 81, 86, 90, 265; inventories, 72, 79, 81, 82, 355n53, 359n9, 3661136, 3 6 7 n 55 later history, 90-92 Sala de' Dugento, Fig. 5, 6, 57, 254 Sala delle Udienze, Fig. 2, 3, 57, 90, 254, 274 Sala Grande, 4, 57, 254 Studiolo of Francesco de' Medici, 52 winter dining hall, 36oni9

GENERAL

44

INDEX

1

and the Aramei, 287, 290

Pontormo, Jacopo da (continued)

letters, 17, 27,45, 55-56, 75, 76, 80-81, 322,

portraits Cosimo de' Medici Pater Patriae, 267,

3 2 8 ' 329. 3 5 o n 5

400111124, 26

portraits of, Figs. 183-84, 9, 310, 321

Maria Salviati and Cosimo de' Medici, Fig.

secretary and majordomo to Cosimo de'

164, 261, 263

Medici, 9, 10, 56-57, 115, 252, 253, 321

portraits of, Figs. 99, 134-37, x43>

20

' < 203,

Richa, Giovanni, 90

204, 205, 211, 212, 323

Ridolfì, Luigi, 23, 26

tapestries, 6, 57, 135, 254

Robbia, Andrea della

Poppi, il (Francesco Morandini): Studiolo of

Coronation of the Virgin, 393m 4

Francesco de' Medici, F i g . 31, 53

Crucifixion (La Verna), F i g . 158, 243

Portelli, Carlo: Giovanni delle Bande Nere, Fig.

Madonna and Saints (S. Croce), 15

167, 266

Medici stemma (La Verna), 4 0 3 ^ 1

Previtali, Andrea: Chapel of the Pregadi, 230,

Robbia, Giovanni della

41in4Ö

Lamentation (La Verna), Fig. 160, 247 tabernacle (SS. Apostoli), 3 8 9 ^ 4

Promised Land, 235, 237, 283, 286, 297, 299,

Robbia, Luca della: Virtue medallions (S. Mi-

3°5>3 I 3>3 I 8

niato), 40in40 Rocke, Michael J., 4 1 6 m 3 Romano, Giulio, 2; death mask of Giovanni

Raimondi, Marcantonio, engravings

delle Bande Nere, 266

Baptism of Christ, F i g . 92; 147

Rosello, Lucio Paolo: Il Ritratto del vero governo

Lamentation, F i g . 132, 200 Martyrdom of S. Lorenzo, Parnassus,

del principe, 273, 309

159

375^6

Rosselli, Cosimo: Crossing of the Red Sea, F i g .

Raphael, 60, 96, 142, 144

148, 120, 219, 230, 234

Rossi, Giovanni Antonio de': cameo of Cosimo

drawings: O x f o r d , Ashmolean 529, 199 Logge, Vatican, 4 0 7 ^ 4

de' Medici and his family, F i g . 30,46-47

Baptism of Christ, 224

Rosso Fiorentino, 2, 142, 201

Crossing of the Red Sea, 230

drawing: London, British Museum Ff. 1-18,

Joseph Fleeing Potiphar's Wife, 291

388ni5

Meeting of Jacob and Rachel at the Well, 224 Moses Striding the

painting: Moses and the Daughters of Jethro,

Roc224

F i g . 76, 129,219

Stories of Moses, 219

Rovere, Guidobaldo della, 96

paintings, 3 7 5 ^ 5

Ruberti, Michele, 359m 1, 362m

Chigi Chapel, 191 Entombment

Rubin, Patricia, 390^0, 396m 7

(Rome), 384nn3Ó, 37

Loggia di Psyche, F i g . 51, 98. See also Udine, Giovanni da

Salviati, Alamanno, 27

Madonna dell'Impannata, 269, 400n20

Salviati, Francesco, 10, 115, 201

Madonna di Loreto, 193

drawings

Moses before the Burning Bush, 295

Florence, Uffizi 1766F, F i g . 102, 160;

Parnassus, F i g . 71, 122, 124, 144 School of Athens,

14610F, Fig. 104,160, 373n53

386^7

Oxford, Ashmolean 683, F i g . 106, 196;

portraits of, 211

685, F i g . 130,196

tapestries: Acts of the Apostles, 254

paintings

Rau and Rastrelli: Degli uomini illustri nella pit-

Deposition (S. Croce), Fig. 9, 11, 155

tura, F i g . 1, 204

Lamentation (Pitti), F i g . 133, 201-3

Riccio, Pierfrancesco, 26, 46, 55, 79, 82, 157, 328,

Lamentation (Viggiù), 37Óni2 Moses and Aaron before the Tabernacle, 223,

329-35on5>36ln33>4°6n27 and the Accademia Fiorentina, 321, 322

407n2

GENERAL

442

INDEX

Signorelli, Luca, 211

scrittoio of Eleonora di Toledo, Fig. 33, 59,

Chapel of S. Brizio, Orvieto, 386n67, 3921163

97. 2 7 9 Visitation, 2, 137

Lamentation (Cortona), 383n25

w e d d i n g apparato of Cosimo de' Medici, 3

Last Acts and Death of Moses, Fig. 157, 235, 3i3,393ni6

winter dining hall (Palazzo Vecchio),

Simon, Robert B., 33

360m 9 portraits of, 201-3

Simoncelli, Paolo, 287

Sala delle Udienze: Story of Camillus, Fig. 2,

Sixtus I V (pope), 219, 295 Smyth, Craig H u g h , 361 n32, 3 6 6 ^ 3

3, 57, 115, 253, 254, 256, 279, 297, 302, 4

Iln

Sodoma, il, 3 8 6 ^ 7

54

Lamentation (Pisa), 215

Arno with a View of Florence, 314

Sacrifice of Isaac, 214

Battle of the Latins and the Volscians, Fig. 2,

Sogliani, Giovanni Antonio

3°5

Sacrifice of Abel, 214, 215

Peace Burning Arms, Fig. 2, 259, 314

Sacrifice of Cain, 214, 215

Sacrifice of Isaac, Fig . 2, 274, 4o6n33 Schoolmaster ofFalieri,

Sacrifice of Noah, 214, 215

402^8

Soto Cornejo, Virgilio, 3Ö6n43

Triumph of Camillus, Figs. 2, 27, 161, 42-

Speculum humanae salvationis, 213, 230

43,256,258, 259, 274,305,313

Stradano, Giovanni

tapestries, 57 Dead Christ with Nicodemus,

paintings

385^0

Arrival of Eleonora di Toledo at Poggio a

Lamentation, Fig. 43, 10, 18, 82, 155,330

Caiano, Fig. 18, 28

Story of Joseph, 6, 10, 57, 115, 254, 291, 292

Cosimo de' Medici and Eleonora di Toledo

Salviati de Medici, Maria, 22, 33, 55, 72, 261,

Receiving in the Palazzo Ducale, Fig. 25,

263, 264; portraits of, PL 11, Fig. 164, 261,

41-42

263-64

Tribute to Dul^e Cosimo de' Medici, Fig. 20,

Sanchez, E d w a r d , 327, 3 6 1 ^ 2 , 3Ó3nio

33

Sandro, Raffaello di, 219

tapestry: David Anointed King by Samuel, 283

Sangallo, Aristotile da: wedding apparato of

Strozzi, Filippo, 305-6, 307

C o s i m o de' Medici, 3, 254 Sangallo, Francesco da, 114

Strozzi, Giambattista, 37on2i

Giovanni delle Bande Nere (Bargello), 399m 1

Strozzi coat of arms, F i g . 181, 305

medal of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, Fig.

Szafran, Yvonne, 3Ó4n2i, 3 7 6 ^

166, 265 San Marino, Giovanni Battista da, 9 Sarto, A n d r e a del, 142

Tadda, Francesco del: Justice, 278

Lamentation (Pitti), Fig. 95, 151, 179, 192,

Taddeo di Francesco, 330

390n39

Tasso, Battista del, 114, 115

Madonna and Saints (Pisa), 382n7

baptism of Francesco de' Medici, 254

Tribute to Caesar, 375n69

Mercato Nuovo, 60

Savoldo, Girolamo: Dead Christ with Nicode-

Palazzo Vecchio, 56-57, 254

mus, 384n44

Apartment of Eleonora di Toledo, 80, 84

Savonarola, Fra Girolamo, 256, 298

Apartment of the Elements, 84

Schlitt, Melinda, 39Óni4

Chapel of Eleonora di Toledo, 58, 60, 72

Sebastiano del Piombo: Pietà (Ubeda), 193

portraits of, Fig. 8, 9

Segni, Bernardo, 251

Thomas, William: History of Italy, 33

Sermoneta, Sicolante da: chapel of the Chateau

Tintoretto: Scuola di S. Rocco, 387m, 3891123,

de la Bastie d'Urfé, F i g . 144, 214, 219, 223,

39onn38,43

3 8 9 n23

Titian, 141, 266

Settimanni, Francesco, 216, 261, 315

painting: Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, 362114

Shearman, John, 179

GENERAL

443

INDEX

woodcut: Crossing of the Red Sea, Fig. 154,

religious life, 4 5 - 4 6 , 392n5 and St. Francis, 3 1 8 - 1 9 , 325, 4 i 3 n 7 7

231,232,305,314

T i t o , Santi di

tomb, 350

Madonna with SS. Francis and

travels in Tuscany, 3 3 - 3 5 , 47

Jerome,

unhappiness in Florence, 35, 4 5 - 4 6

2n

39 5 Solomon Building

will, 50

the Temple, 283

Toledo, Francesco di, 76, 77, 328, 329

Toledo, Eleonora di

Toledo, G a r z i a di, 27

apartment. See Palazzo Vecchio

Toledo, Isabella di, 23

appearance, 23, 42, 5 1 , 2 6 4 - 6 5

Toledo, Pedro di, 85

biography of, 92

Toledo, Pedro di A l v a r e z di, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28,

birth, 22

31,54,4^78

birth of children, 33, 4 0 - 4 1 , 290, 3 1 8 - 1 9 ,

4I3n78

Toledo family, 30; coat of arms, 40, 276

•

Tomaso di Francesco, 330

B o o k of H o u r s , Fig. 24, 37, 39, 277 and C h a p e l of Eleonora, 72, 79, 80, 156, 3 2 0 -

Tosini, Michele: Pierfrancesco

Riccio,

35on6

Tribolo, Niccolò, 2, 10, 1 1 4 , 1 5 7 , 252, 37in2Ó

21

childhood in Naples, 22, 26, 3 1 , 3 2 1

baptism of Francesco de' Medici, 254

coat of arms. See Medici, C o s i m o I de'

drawings: Paris, L o u v r e 4 9 , 4 0 9 ^ 0 ; 50V, 399m 7

death and funeral, 5 0 - 5 2 device of the peahen, 43, 45

portraits of, Fig. 8, 9, 284

entry into Florence, 2 9 - 3 0

sculptures, Villa Castello, 3, 253, 254, 256, 259, 272

entry into Pisa, 27 entry into R o m e , 49

Aesculapius (after), Fig. 178, 300

entry into Siena, 48

Fountain of Hercules and Antaeus, Figs. 3,

as E u r y d i c e , 33 finances, genetrix,

6 5 - 6 6 , 4 , 107, 1 1 2 ,

258

118,274,305

Fountain of Venus-Fiorenza,

300

wedding apparato of C o s i m o de' Medici, 3,

3 0 , 3 1 , 37, 42, 45, 4 8 - 4 9 , 5 1 , 52, 53,

260, 276, 278, 279, 280, 290, 299, 3 1 4 , 3 1 6 ,

29, 254, 266

typology, 1.1

318,321,325

passim, 242, 271

as goddess, 30 handwriting and signature, 26, 3 5 2 n i 2 , Udine, Giovanni da: L o g g i a di Psyche, Fig.

355 n 44

172, 280

illness, 46, 49, 188 a n d the Jesuits, 4 5 - 4 6

journey to Florence, 2 6 - 2 8 Vaga, Perino del, 2

as Juno, 3 1 , 4 2 , 43, 45, 5 1 , 53, 356n65 letters, 26, 3 4 - 3 5 , 3541143, 3551144

d r a w i n g , Vienna, Albertina, Fig. 1 1 0 , 166

linguistic ability, 18, 26

painting: Crossing of the Red Sea, Fig. 149,

marriage-by-proxy, 23, 26, 3 1

219, 2 3 1 , 232, 3 9 i n n 5 3 , 55

as Minerva, 279

Valori, Baccio, 304

patronage, 37, 82, 86, 156, 1 5 7 , 159, 277, 320,

Varchi, Benedetto, 2 5 1 , 253, 323, 4 0 6 ^ 7

36in33>4'4n79

Due

Storia fiorentina,

3 1 , 100, 1 6 5 , 170, 1 2 , 2 3 , 3 6 - 3 7 , 42, 4 6 - 4 7 , L

114-15

portrait of, 386n64

portraits of, Pis. 2, 3 1 , Figs. 2 1 , 23, 2 5 - 2 6 , 2 8 52-53.

lezzioni,

poetry, 252

poetry to, 20, 22, 27, 51

257

Vasari, Giorgio, 2, 4, n , 1 1 6 , 4 1 2 n 5 9

49> 1 5 9 . 2 5 4 > 2 5 9 > 2 6 4 - 6 5 , 2 7 5 ,

as architect, 9, 85

3&5n23. See also PI. 32, 3 1 6 , 3 1 8 pregnancy, 3 1 7

baptism of Francesco de' Medici (Baptism of

purchase of Palazzo Pitti, 41

Christ, Crossing of the Red Sea, and The Del-

regent of Florence, 3 4 - 3 5

uge),

GENERAL

444

INDEX

2 1 6 - 1 7 , 254.

28

9»3I5

Marriage of Dul(e Alessandro de'

drawings Gathering of Manna (lost), 116

Marriage of Catherine de' Medici,

L o n d o n , British M u s e u m 1895-9-15-754,

Sala di C o s i m o , q i i n j i .

387n6 387n6

Sala di G i o v e , 4 i o n 4 i Sala G r a n d e , 250

letters, 398~99n7

Studiolo of Francesco de' Medici, 52

letter to Varchi, 114, 180

portraits

Le vite (1550), 70, 178

Alessandro de' Medici, 266

Le vite (1568), 1, 127, 178-79, 180, 251, 253 Bachiacca, 219

Ragionamenti,

B r o n z i n o , 1, 31, 70, 7 1 - 7 2 , 78-79, 85, 101, 107, 125, 141, 143, 180, 211, 323

250, 251, 253

Verrocchio, A n d r e a del tomb of C o s i m o de' Medici il Vecchio,

Franco, Battista, 304

4°3 n 6 3

P o n t o r m o , 98, 183, 289-90

tomb of Piero and Giovanni de' Medici,

Tribolo, 253, 274

403nÓ3

U d i n e , G i o v a n n i da, 250, 280

Verrocchio, T o m m a s o del, 90

Vasari, 196, 273

Vettori, Piero, 51, 252

paintings Dead Christ with Nicodemus,

Vezzano, Paolo Zacchi da: Allegory of the Liber

385^5

ality of Du^e Alessandro de' Medici,

( A r e z z o ) , 196

Academy of Baccio Bandinelli,

383n29

Fig. 141, 209

antique vase, 196

( A r e z z o ) , 196 (Uffizi), 4, 3 7 3 ^ 3

Martelli altarpiece, 11

villas Cafaggiolo, 15 Castello, 26, 33, 56, 254, 300

Nativity (Camaldoli), 382m 2

Poggio a Caiano, Fig. 18, 28, 35, 37, 55, 76,

P a l a z z o Vecchio decorations, 45, 251

79. 80, 254

A p a r t m e n t of C o s i m o de' Medici, 283

Trebbio, 283

A p a r t m e n t of Eleonora di Toledo, 19,^41,

57

Vinci, L e o n a r d o da, 86, 3 7 9 ^ 9 Vinci, Pierino da

A p a r t m e n t of the Elements, 84 Apotheosis of Duke Cosimo de'

409n22

Vico, Enea, engravings

Descent from the Cross (Camaldoli), 4,

Conception

272-73

portraits of, Fig. 8, 9

B e c c a f u m i , 225

Entombment

Giovanni de' Medici as St. John, 400n30 Lorenzo de' Medici il Magnifico,

Bandinelli, 157, 1 7 6 - 7 7 , 201

Immaculate

354^4

Sala di Giovanni delle Bande N e r e , 3 9 9 m

S t o c k h o l m , National M u s e u m 60/1863,

Deposition

Medici,

354n34

Florence, U f f i z i 2 orn., 3 6 ^ 1 3

Cosimo de' Medici as Patron of Pisa, Fig. 174,

Medici,

28

4°4 n 79

4.3'3

portraits of, 118

C h a p e l of C o s i m o de' Medici, Figs. 16, 50,

97- 2 73

Vitelli, Alessandro, 303 Volto Santo, 201

Cosimo de' Medici and the Prisoners of Mon temurlo, Fig. 182, 307 Cosimo de' Medici as St. Cosmas, Fig. 16, 266-67 Cosimo de' Medici Planning His

Wallace, W i l l i a m , 3 6 6 ^ 3 Campaign

against Siena, 402nn54, 56, 41 in54 Cosimo de' Medici with His Architects,

Ward, Roger, 377n23 Weinstein, Donald, 409m 9

Engi-

neers, and Sculptors, Fig. 8, 8 - 9 , 107, 276 Cosimo il Vecchio as St. Damian, Fig. 16,

Weyden, Roger van der: Madonna and Saints, 398m Wright, D a v i d , 3 6 2 ^

267

G E N E R A L

I N D E X

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