Medici Patronage and the Baroque: A Reappraisal

Abstract

There can be little doubt that the most extensive, most important fresco decorations entrusted to local painters in seventeenth century Florence were those in the Salone Terreno (Fig. 1) in the Palazzo Pitti, now often referred to as the Sala degli Argenti. Within the monumental dimensions of this single space are demonstrated the frescoing talents of Giovanni Mannozzi, called Giovanni da San Giovanni, who started the decorations but died before their completion, Francesco Montelatici, called Cecco Bravo, Ottavio Vannini and Francesco Furini.1 The fact that in the later palace decorations Grand Duke Ferdinand II de' Medici chose to rely on the services of non-Florentine painters, the team of Bolognese quadraturisti Angelo Michele Colonna and Agostino Mitelli and, above all, the Tuscan-born practitioner of the Roman Baroque idiom, Pietro da Cortona, rather than the indigenous painters who completed the Salone can in retrospect be considered a turning point in the history of seventeenth century painting and...