The Medici Wedding of 1589

The Medici Wedding of 1589
Author: James M. Saslow
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780300064476

The marriage in 1589 of Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici and the French princess Christine of Lorraine was a landmark event in Renaissance art and architecture, theater, music, and political ceremonial. Celebrated by a month of elaborate pageantry that required a full year of preparations, the wedding mobilized the combined artistic, intellectual, and administrative forces of Tuscany at the zenith of its wealth, power, and cultural prestige. This book combines art and social history to present the first comprehensive reconstruction of the Medici wedding and in the process provides a fascinating narrative of Florentine culture during the Renaissance. James Saslow draws on a rich trove of visual and archival sources to describe the jousts, plays, musical-dramatic intermedi, processions, and tournaments that celebrated the wedding; the artists, musicians, and architects who created and organized the events; and the bureaucratic administration that sustained this Renaissance "theater of the world." His sources include producers' daily logbooks and detailed records of the design process, staff, payments, and logistics, as well as eighty-eight set and costume drawings, paintings, and prints, which appear in a catalogue included in the book. Saslow's study will be of interest to practitioners and historians of theater, dance, music, and the visual arts, as well as to students of political and economic history and cultural studies.

The Medici, Michelangelo, & the Art of Late Renaissance Florence

The Medici, Michelangelo, & the Art of Late Renaissance Florence
Author: Cristina Acidini
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 406
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780300094954

"Publisdhed in conjuntion with the exhibition: Magnificenza! the Medici, Michelangelo, & the Art of Late Renaissance Florence (In Italy, L'Ombra del genio: Michelangelo e l'arte a Firenze, 1538-1631) ..."--Title page verso.

The Politics of Water in the Art and Festivals of Medici Florence

The Politics of Water in the Art and Festivals of Medici Florence
Author: Felicia M. Else
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 271
Release: 2018-07-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 0429890354

This book tells the story of one dynasty's struggle with water, to control its flow and manage its representation. The role of water in the art and festivals of Cosimo I and his heirs, Francesco I and Ferdinando I de' Medici, informs this richly-illustrated interdisciplinary study. Else draws on a wealth of visual and documentary material to trace how the Medici sought to harness the power of Neptune, whether in the application of his imagery or in the control over waterways and maritime frontiers, as they negotiated a place in the unstable political arena of Europe, and competed with foreign powers more versed in maritime traditions and aquatic imagery.

Culture and Power

Culture and Power
Author: Jonathan Davies
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2009
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004172556

Traditionally grand ducal Tuscany and its cultural politics have been viewed through the lens of absolutism. Based on a wide range of newly found sources and building on recent revisionist scholarship, this study uses the universities of Pisa and Siena to expose the contradictions and the tensions which characterised the grand duchy. Setting the universities against the diplomatic, military, administrative, economic, ecclesiastical, and cultural development of the grand duchy, it shows how innovation mixed with tradition and local privileges were not only upheld but extended significantly.

Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Renaissance Florence

Art and the Relic Cult of St. Antoninus in Renaissance Florence
Author: SallyJ. Cornelison
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2017-07-05
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1351575651

Tracing the history of St. Antoninus' cult and burial from the time of his death in 1459 until his remains were moved to their final resting place in 1589, this interdisciplinary study demonstrates that the saint's relic cult was a key element of Florence's sacred cityscape. The works of art created in his honor, as well as the rituals practiced at his fifteenth- and sixteenth-century places of burial, advertised Antoninus' saintly power and persona to the people who depended upon his intercessory abilities to negotiate life's challenges. Drawing on a rich variety of contemporary visual, literary, and archival sources, this volume explores the ways in which shifting political, familial, and ecclesiastical aims and agendas shaped the ways in which St. Antoninus' holiness was broadcast to those who visited his burial church. Author Sally Cornelison foregrounds the visual splendor of the St. Antoninus Chapel, which was designed, built, and decorated by Medici court artist Giambologna and his collaborators between 1579 and 1591. Her research sheds new light on the artist, whose secular and mythological sculptures have received far more scholarly attention than his religious works. Cornelison draws on social and religious history, patronage and gender studies, and art historical and anthropological inquiries into the functions and meanings of images, relics, and ritual performance, to interpret how they activated St. Antoninus' burial sites and defined them in ways that held multivalent meanings for a broad audience of viewers and devotees. Among the objects for which she provides visual and contextual analyses are a banner from the saint's first tomb, early printed and painted images, and the sculptures, frescoes, panel paintings, and embroidered textiles made for the present St. Antoninus Chapel.