Cosimo II and the Beginning of the Gallery
As even the pictorial sources testify, Cosimo II was the first to plan to enlarge Palazzo Pitti after the extensions commissioned by his father, Francesco I, and grandfather, Cosimo I. They had retained Bartolomeo Ammannati to add a courtyard and wings to the fifteenth century building, along with the “knelling windows” with their crowned lions on the façade. When Cosimo II made his plans, it seemed logical to extend the façade of the palace in a way to cover the new wings that Ammannati had added (see Utens’ lunette). Cosimo II had entrusted the work of extending the north side of the façade to Giulio Parigi (1571-1635), nephew of Bernardo Buontalenti, a civil and theatrical engineer, producer of theatrical spectacles, to say nothing of being the founder of a school for landscape painters. His was a congenial personality for the grand duke who loved spectacles of all kinds, whether in the town’s piazzas or on the Arno.
Cosimo did not live to see the beginning of the work. From his bed he was able to apply the first symbolic mortar to a brick, but he died in February 1621 long before his project was completed. It fell to his wife, Maria Maddelena, and his son Ferdinando II to bring the work to a happy conclusion two decades later. In any case, a few months before his death, in September 1620, when Cosimo II moved into the Winter Apartments on the piano nobile, he realized another project that, while perhaps of less importance, marked the beginning of the great tradition of art collecting that characterized the Medici family and that ultimately gave birth to the Uffizi Gallery and the galleries of Palazzo Pitti. A description provided by Cesare Tinghi (c. 1625), a chronicler of Florentine events, says that Cosimo prefigured what was to become the Pitti’s ‘baroque’ style. “On 27 September, Sts. Cosma and Damiano’s Day, Cosimo had a good idea: to convert a loggia on the piano nobile, about seventy-five paces long, into a beautiful gallery adorned with sculptures and marble heads on walnut stands and with works by the most talented men of the day, including Raphael of Urbino, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Pollaiolo, Andrea del Sarto, Vinitiano, Bronzino, Cigoli, Santi di Tito…and many other painters of our time. There would be historical pictures, portraits, horses…and many other beautiful things, thanks to the taste and pleasure of His Highness…” (from M. Mosco, in La Galleria Palatina, 1982, p. 31).
This was the area that was to become, at the end of the 17th century, the “galleria delle statue” with the arrival of the marbles from the Villa Medici in Rome. Based on Cosimo’s idea and with the addition of other sculptures and busts of Roman emperors, the room takes on the appearance that we see today. Even the names of the painters that Tinghi mentions match the choices made by the Lorraines for the Palatine Gallery many years later. We can only imagine on the walls works like Mendoza by Titian, the Velata by Raphael, a gift to the grand duke from R. Botti, perhaps the Baccio Valori by Sabastiano del Piombo, the Luca Marini by Bronzino, the Apollo e Marsia by Guercino (acquired for Cosimo in Bologna), the Giuditta by Cristiano Allori, one or two of the many Cigolis in the gallery, one of the many Andrea del Sarto works, and the St. Ivo dell’Empoli, one of the portraits by Santi di Tito, and the Honthorst (often noted in Italy as “Gheradro of the nights”), works by Gentileschi, Battistello Caracchiolo…all those masterpieces that we admire today at the Pitti.
Cosimo did not live to see the beginning of the work. From his bed he was able to apply the first symbolic mortar to a brick, but he died in February 1621 long before his project was completed. It fell to his wife, Maria Maddelena, and his son Ferdinando II to bring the work to a happy conclusion two decades later. In any case, a few months before his death, in September 1620, when Cosimo II moved into the Winter Apartments on the piano nobile, he realized another project that, while perhaps of less importance, marked the beginning of the great tradition of art collecting that characterized the Medici family and that ultimately gave birth to the Uffizi Gallery and the galleries of Palazzo Pitti. A description provided by Cesare Tinghi (c. 1625), a chronicler of Florentine events, says that Cosimo prefigured what was to become the Pitti’s ‘baroque’ style. “On 27 September, Sts. Cosma and Damiano’s Day, Cosimo had a good idea: to convert a loggia on the piano nobile, about seventy-five paces long, into a beautiful gallery adorned with sculptures and marble heads on walnut stands and with works by the most talented men of the day, including Raphael of Urbino, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Pollaiolo, Andrea del Sarto, Vinitiano, Bronzino, Cigoli, Santi di Tito…and many other painters of our time. There would be historical pictures, portraits, horses…and many other beautiful things, thanks to the taste and pleasure of His Highness…” (from M. Mosco, in La Galleria Palatina, 1982, p. 31).
This was the area that was to become, at the end of the 17th century, the “galleria delle statue” with the arrival of the marbles from the Villa Medici in Rome. Based on Cosimo’s idea and with the addition of other sculptures and busts of Roman emperors, the room takes on the appearance that we see today. Even the names of the painters that Tinghi mentions match the choices made by the Lorraines for the Palatine Gallery many years later. We can only imagine on the walls works like Mendoza by Titian, the Velata by Raphael, a gift to the grand duke from R. Botti, perhaps the Baccio Valori by Sabastiano del Piombo, the Luca Marini by Bronzino, the Apollo e Marsia by Guercino (acquired for Cosimo in Bologna), the Giuditta by Cristiano Allori, one or two of the many Cigolis in the gallery, one of the many Andrea del Sarto works, and the St. Ivo dell’Empoli, one of the portraits by Santi di Tito, and the Honthorst (often noted in Italy as “Gheradro of the nights”), works by Gentileschi, Battistello Caracchiolo…all those masterpieces that we admire today at the Pitti.
There were also paintings in Cosimo’s private apartment, but these were almost exclusively the work of Filippo Napoletano… painted on copper and on canvas, and they must have filled the room. In his bedroom there was the extraordinary altarpiece with l’Esaltazione e le storie della Croce (now in Frankfurt, Staedelsches Institut) by the great German painter Adam Elsheimer that the grand duke, notwithstanding Cigoli’s advice to the contrary, acquired at great cost and after much negotiation in Rome in 1619.
In the “loggetta che fa galleria” – today called Poccetti’s Gallery – that formed a passageway connecting the grand duchess’s apartment with the grand duke’s, there were the paintings on “pietra paesina” that were probably invented by Filippo Napoletano and that underlined Cosimo’s passion for precious pictures with northern influences. It is not by chance that these are the same years in which he acquired the copper paintings by Cornelius van Poelenburgh and the canvases of his compatriot G. van Honthorst already mentioned. The number of Caravaggesque paintings in the collection grew, as did the number ofpaintings by Manfredi, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Battistello Caracciolo -- these last two were guests at court.
Cosimo and Maria Maddelena’s collecting, including the precious objects that were often commissioned by them (see the Reliquary Chapel), set an example for the future development of generations of Medici collectors to come.
Marco Chiarini, “Cosimo II e l’inizio della quadreria”, Palazzo Pitti: l’arte e la storia, Firenze, 2000-2003, pp. 66-70.
Cosimo and Maria Maddelena’s collecting, including the precious objects that were often commissioned by them (see the Reliquary Chapel), set an example for the future development of generations of Medici collectors to come.
Marco Chiarini, “Cosimo II e l’inizio della quadreria”, Palazzo Pitti: l’arte e la storia, Firenze, 2000-2003, pp. 66-70.