Cosimo II and Maria Maddalena of Austria
Twenty years after the completion of Ammannati’s addition to the palace, Cosimo II became grand duke upon the death of his father in 1609. He found the space available in Palazzo Pitti to be inadequate to the needs of his expanded court and accordingly ordered Giulio Parigi (1571-1635), the nephew of Bernardo Buontalenti, to undertake an expansion. Parigi was a civil engineer but also the producer of stage spectacles and a person much suited to the tastes and passions of the grand duke who enjoyed staging spectacles in his palace and in the piazzas of the city.
With the significant expansion that Parigi envisioned, the palace lost much of the stylistic integrity of Brunelleschi’s original plan, but it gained some authentic treasures. In 1618 the north side of the façade was extended on the lower two floors. This provided a series of prestigious rooms facing the piazza, with eight new windows similar in design and size so those already existing. On the second floor of the palace, a single large room was created over the first three windows of the new addition. This room, finished in 1626, was utilized only many years later when it became a part of the apartments of Cardinal Prince Leopoldo, used to house his prodigious collection of paintings and sculpture. Other parts of the addition were used for games, studios for artisans, and for the daily life of pages, footmen, and all the others who contributed to the grand life of a court that had reached the apex of its political and mercantile power.
But Cosimo barely lived long enough to see the beginning of the work. From his bed, he managed to put some symbolic mortar on the first brick before he died of tuberculosis in February of 1621. He never managed to see the completion of his project. It was his widow, Maria Maddalena of Austria and his son, Ferdinando II, who concluded the work in the succeeding decades.
In September of 1620 a few months before his death, Cosimo returned to his rooms in the winter apartments on the piano nobile, where he did manage to realize another project that, even if of less importance, was significant. Cosimo conceived of what was to become the first gallery at Palazzo Pitti. It marked the beginning of the propensity to collect art that was to characterize the Medici family, leading not only to the creation of the gallery of the Uffizi, but also the Palatine Gallery in Palazzo Pitti. (For more on Cosimo''s collecting, see also "Cosimo II and the beginning of the gallery.")
Even though Cosimo II died when he was only 31, he and his wife Maria Maddalena of Austria produced seven children, most of whom had illustrious careers. The eldest, Ferdinando II, was only ten when his father died. His youngest brother, Leopoldo, was only 4. So the seven children, including Cardinal Giovan Carlo; Prince Mattias, the future Governor of Siena; a future Duchess of Parma; and an archduchess of Austria were raised together at the Pitti by their mother. At the same time, their grand-mother, Cristina of Lorraine, the widow of Ferdinando I, lived in the palace and actually survived Maria Maddalena by six years. These two women, who served together as regents for the young Ferdinando before he reached his majority in 1628, must have exercised a significant influence over the education and development of this younger generation.
With the significant expansion that Parigi envisioned, the palace lost much of the stylistic integrity of Brunelleschi’s original plan, but it gained some authentic treasures. In 1618 the north side of the façade was extended on the lower two floors. This provided a series of prestigious rooms facing the piazza, with eight new windows similar in design and size so those already existing. On the second floor of the palace, a single large room was created over the first three windows of the new addition. This room, finished in 1626, was utilized only many years later when it became a part of the apartments of Cardinal Prince Leopoldo, used to house his prodigious collection of paintings and sculpture. Other parts of the addition were used for games, studios for artisans, and for the daily life of pages, footmen, and all the others who contributed to the grand life of a court that had reached the apex of its political and mercantile power.
But Cosimo barely lived long enough to see the beginning of the work. From his bed, he managed to put some symbolic mortar on the first brick before he died of tuberculosis in February of 1621. He never managed to see the completion of his project. It was his widow, Maria Maddalena of Austria and his son, Ferdinando II, who concluded the work in the succeeding decades.
In September of 1620 a few months before his death, Cosimo returned to his rooms in the winter apartments on the piano nobile, where he did manage to realize another project that, even if of less importance, was significant. Cosimo conceived of what was to become the first gallery at Palazzo Pitti. It marked the beginning of the propensity to collect art that was to characterize the Medici family, leading not only to the creation of the gallery of the Uffizi, but also the Palatine Gallery in Palazzo Pitti. (For more on Cosimo''s collecting, see also "Cosimo II and the beginning of the gallery.")
Even though Cosimo II died when he was only 31, he and his wife Maria Maddalena of Austria produced seven children, most of whom had illustrious careers. The eldest, Ferdinando II, was only ten when his father died. His youngest brother, Leopoldo, was only 4. So the seven children, including Cardinal Giovan Carlo; Prince Mattias, the future Governor of Siena; a future Duchess of Parma; and an archduchess of Austria were raised together at the Pitti by their mother. At the same time, their grand-mother, Cristina of Lorraine, the widow of Ferdinando I, lived in the palace and actually survived Maria Maddalena by six years. These two women, who served together as regents for the young Ferdinando before he reached his majority in 1628, must have exercised a significant influence over the education and development of this younger generation.