The Medici : portraits and politics, 1512-1570 Cover Image

Book

The Medici : portraits and politics, 1512-1570 / edited by Keith Christiansen and Carlo Falciani ; with contributions by Andrea Bayer, Elizabeth Cropper, Davide Gasparotto, Sefy Hendler, Antonella Fenech Kroke, Tommaso Mozzati, Elizabeth Pilliod, Julia Siemon, Linda Wolk-Simon.

Christiansen, Keith, (editor.). Falciani, Carlo, (editor.). Bayer, Andrea, (contributor.). Cropper, Elizabeth, 1944- (contributor.). Gasparotto, Davide, (contributor.). Hendler, Sefy, 1972- (contributor.). Fenech Kroke, Antonella, (contributor.). Mozzati, Tommaso, (contributor.). Pilliod, Elizabeth, (contributor.). Siemon, Julia, (contributor.). Wolk-Simon, Linda, (contributor.). Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), (organizer,, host institution.).

Summary:

"Between 1512 and 1570, Florence underwent dramatic political transformations. As citizens jockeyed for prominence, portraits became an essential means not only of recording likeness but also of conveying a sitter's character, social position, and cultural ambitions. This book explores the ways that painters, including Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Francesco Salviati, sculptors such as Benvenuto Cellini, and others, endowed Florentine portraiture with the erudite and self-consciously stylish character that made it so distinctive. The Medici family had ruled Florence without interruption bewteen 1434 and 1494. Following their return to power in 1512, Cosimo I de Medici, who became the second Duke of Florence in 1537, demonstrated a particularly shrewd ability to wield culture as a political tool in order to transform Florence into a dynastic duchy and give Florentine art the central position it has held ever since. Featuring more than ninety remarkable paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and medals, this volume is written by a team of leading international authors and presents a sweeping penetrating exploration of a crucial and vibrant period in Italian art."--Front flap of dust jacket.

Record details

ISBN: 9781588397300
ISBN: 1588397300
Physical Description: 327 pages : color illustrations, portraits (chiefly color) ; 29 cm
Publisher: New York, New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, [2021]
Distributor: New Haven, CT : Distributed by Yale University Press, 2021.
Copyright: ©2021

Content descriptions

General Note:	"This catalogue is published in conjunction with 'The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512-1570', on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, from June 26, 2021 through October 11, 2021"--Colophon.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-318) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Power and identity in sixteenth-century Florentine portraiture / Carlo Falciani -- Vernacular identities: the Academia Fiorentina and the poetics of portraiture / Elizabeth Cropper -- g Catalogue -- From republic to Duchy, 1512-32 / Carlo Falciani -- Politics, portraiture, and the Medici Popes, 1513-34 / Linda Wolk-Simon -- Cosimo I de' Medici: lineage, family, and dynastic ambitions / Elizabeth Pilliod -- A poetics of portraiture and the legacy of Dante and Petrarch / Julia Siemon -- Cosimo and the politics of culture: reinventing Florence as a cultural capital / Sefy Hendler -- Redecorating the Palazzo Vecchio / Antonella Fenech Kroke -- Florence and Rome: Bronzino and Salviati / Carlo Falciani.