Cosimo III's Ground Floor Apartment
The Florentine Jacopo Chiavistelli (1621-1698) began a period of intense and continuing activity for the Medici in 1661 at Palazzo Pitti, beginning with the decoration of the “summer” apartment on the ground floor of the right wing of the courtyard, the apartment of the crown prince, Cosimo, and his bride of the same year, Margherita Louise, the cousin of King Louis XIV. This vast apartment – a salon and eight rooms – was completely decorated with frescoes of faux architecture, such as Mitelli and Coloanna had created on the walls of the “summer apartments” for Ferdinando II. Chiavistelli was assisted in this effort by several specialists. Francesco Bettini (whom we find later at work in the decoration of Prince Ferdinando’s alcove on the piano nobile) and Cosimo Ulivelli assisted with the painting of the figures, and Agnolo Gori worked on the festoons of flowers and fruits. All that remains of this vast, decorative project are the frescoes in two rooms, while most of the frescoes in the other rooms were repainted in pale, uninteresting colors in the 19th century. For this reason, it is difficult to determine which of the two “figuristi”, Bettini or Ulivelli, was responsible for which room, even though we can hypothesize that Bettini was responsible for the background of a ceiling with the figure of Juno. The large, central salon, largely destroyed in the 19th century when this area was transformed into the Cappella Palatina, is described with great precision by Bocchi-Cinelli, who recalls that the complex architecture pictured on the walls opened onto a faux loggetta, through which one could see “fabbriche nobili”, while the ceiling, covered in faux architectural elements of white and gold, had three sections. The central section contains the prince’s coat-of-arms, while the other two have representations of Diana and Apollo in chariots.
Chiarini, Marco, “L’attività di Jacopo Chiavistelli a Palazzo Pitti”, Palazzo Pitti: l‘arte e la storia, Nardini Editore, 2000-2003, Firenze, pp. 143-145.
See also:
Fauzia Farneti, Jacopo Chiavistelli nei quartieri terreni dei "Serenissimi Prinicpi Sposi" in Palazzo Pitti: la fortuna di un apparato decorativo a illusionismo architecttonico, 2015.
Chiarini, Marco, “L’attività di Jacopo Chiavistelli a Palazzo Pitti”, Palazzo Pitti: l‘arte e la storia, Nardini Editore, 2000-2003, Firenze, pp. 143-145.
See also:
Fauzia Farneti, Jacopo Chiavistelli nei quartieri terreni dei "Serenissimi Prinicpi Sposi" in Palazzo Pitti: la fortuna di un apparato decorativo a illusionismo architecttonico, 2015.