The Medici had continuously ruled Florence in 1434-94. But the Medici family only returned to power in 1512, after Florence had lost its identity and become a pawn in stormy European politics. Florence changed from a republic with elected officials .. to one ruled by Medici.
And the key figure in this transformation was 17 year old Cosimo I de Medici from a minor branch of an elite family, who became Duke of Florence in 1537, after his predecessor Alessandro de' Medici was murdered. Cosimo had been selected by power brokers in Florence who believed they could control him. But instead he grabbed control from elected officials, establishing himself as an autocrat. Florence was made important again, even with a tyrant, and the city was grateful.
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Alessandro de' Medici Duke of Florence, 1534
by Jacopo Pontormo,
Credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art
To convert the mercantile city into the capital of a Medici state, Cosimo enlisted the leading intellectuals, promoting grand architectural, engineering and art projects. Explore how Cosimo and the other Medici used the era’s dominant medium, art, as propaganda, clarifying that Florence was still a power to reckon with. See what Florentines thought about influence and the central role that arts and culture played in Renaissance politics. Cosimo’s goal was to see how he and his circle used the arts to promote the Medici brand.
Portraits, a very personal subject, provided a seductive way to explore politics and patronage. They became an essential means of noting sitters’ likeness, character, social position and cultural ambitions
In Giorgio Vasari's famous book Lives of the Artists (1550), which was dedicated to the Duke, Florence was promoted as the heart of the Renaissance. He had nurtured the idea of Florence as the intellectual powerhouse of the Renaissance and the Medici as the key players.
The 2021 exhibition displayed a bronze bust of Cosimo I de' Medici 1545 by Cellini, on loan from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. In 1557 the bust found a permanent home above the main fortress gate on Elba Island. Its piercing gaze and Roman-ish armour conveyed Cosimo’s power, building on imperial iconography to link the Medici and Italy’s ancient leaders. Specialists saw that its eyes had been crafted out of silver, a preference pioneered in the classical civilisations that Renaissance artists copied centuries later. Thus it was restored.
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bronze bust of Cosimo I de' Medici 1545 by Cellini
Credit Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
And the key figure in this transformation was 17 year old Cosimo I de Medici from a minor branch of an elite family, who became Duke of Florence in 1537, after his predecessor Alessandro de' Medici was murdered. Cosimo had been selected by power brokers in Florence who believed they could control him. But instead he grabbed control from elected officials, establishing himself as an autocrat. Florence was made important again, even with a tyrant, and the city was grateful.
by Jacopo Pontormo,
Credit: Philadelphia Museum of Art
To convert the mercantile city into the capital of a Medici state, Cosimo enlisted the leading intellectuals, promoting grand architectural, engineering and art projects. Explore how Cosimo and the other Medici used the era’s dominant medium, art, as propaganda, clarifying that Florence was still a power to reckon with. See what Florentines thought about influence and the central role that arts and culture played in Renaissance politics. Cosimo’s goal was to see how he and his circle used the arts to promote the Medici brand.
Portraits, a very personal subject, provided a seductive way to explore politics and patronage. They became an essential means of noting sitters’ likeness, character, social position and cultural ambitions
In Giorgio Vasari's famous book Lives of the Artists (1550), which was dedicated to the Duke, Florence was promoted as the heart of the Renaissance. He had nurtured the idea of Florence as the intellectual powerhouse of the Renaissance and the Medici as the key players.
The 2021 exhibition displayed a bronze bust of Cosimo I de' Medici 1545 by Cellini, on loan from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. In 1557 the bust found a permanent home above the main fortress gate on Elba Island. Its piercing gaze and Roman-ish armour conveyed Cosimo’s power, building on imperial iconography to link the Medici and Italy’s ancient leaders. Specialists saw that its eyes had been crafted out of silver, a preference pioneered in the classical civilisations that Renaissance artists copied centuries later. Thus it was restored.
Credit Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence
Other works also connected the family to classical culture eg Cosimo I de’ Medici as Orpheus (1537–9) by Bronzino. He cast the Duke as the mythological musician Orpheus, aligning him with greater forces. A marble bust of an aging Cosimo by sculptor Giovanni Bandini showed him as a Roman emperor, timeless in his authority.
Portraits and Politics had 6 sections that started in the early C16th when the family newly returned from exile. See how the High Renaissance rulers cemented their power through commissioning culture and associating with artists. The exhibition’s first sections covered 1512-34, introducing us to relatives like Pope Clement VII, Lorenzo the Magnificent’s nephew and Alessandro de’ Medici, who ?was the son of Lorenzo di Piero, Duke of Urbino. [The family actually produced four popes: Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV and Leo XI].
Then inspect Cosimo himself. See how the Duke and his immediate family, including 1st wife Eleonora of Toledo (d1572), used portraits to project power, assert Medici continuity and convey cultural refinement! Bronzino painted Eleonora, posing alongside each of her sons. Placing each son next to mum said that the next generation would create branches from the invigorated dynastic trunk.
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Portraits and Politics had 6 sections that started in the early C16th when the family newly returned from exile. See how the High Renaissance rulers cemented their power through commissioning culture and associating with artists. The exhibition’s first sections covered 1512-34, introducing us to relatives like Pope Clement VII, Lorenzo the Magnificent’s nephew and Alessandro de’ Medici, who ?was the son of Lorenzo di Piero, Duke of Urbino. [The family actually produced four popes: Leo X, Clement VII, Pius IV and Leo XI].
Then inspect Cosimo himself. See how the Duke and his immediate family, including 1st wife Eleonora of Toledo (d1572), used portraits to project power, assert Medici continuity and convey cultural refinement! Bronzino painted Eleonora, posing alongside each of her sons. Placing each son next to mum said that the next generation would create branches from the invigorated dynastic trunk.
Bronzino, Eleanora of Toledo and son Giovanni, 1545
Photo credit: Ufizzi
The second half of Portraits and Politics examined those whose art elevated Florence to new cultural heights. It put together the work of Bronzino, the Mannerist artist who was Cosimo’s court painter, and Francesco Salviati, whose pan-Italian style competed with Bronzino’s clearly Florentine-based art. And the exhibition celebrated the city’s literary culture, linked to portraiture. But as realistic as the facial image was, this alone could not convey the most intimate aspects of the sitter. Identity was embedded in symbols, in codified formal language capable of explaining concepts previously confined to poetry. NB Bronzino’s restored Portrait of Poet Laura Battiferri. Laura’s likeness explicitly referenced 2 other famous Florentine poets: her Dante profile and her Petrarch verses.
Not all of the people featured were well-known eg his ancestor Cosimo the Elder on the catalogue cover. Cosimo the Elder was not a Medici, but was the son of a wealthy Florentine banker. Nonetheless the work was described as a masterpiece of C16th portraiture, summarising the power of art as propaganda. The young man with a medallion portrait of a woman near his chest was filled with symbolism.
The catalogue closed with a quote from the Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, acknowledging the staying power of great art. Now read The Medici Family in History Today and The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–70 (see above).
The catalogue closed with a quote from the Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, acknowledging the staying power of great art. Now read The Medici Family in History Today and The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–70 (see above).