Cardinal Giovan Carlo as a Collector
The reception of Roman developments in art was also fundamental for Ferdinando’s brothers Giovan Carlo and Mattias. Between them they contributed to the already vast family patrimony with a rich collection of works that revealed their interest in artistic activity outside the contemporary Florentine cultural milieu. They acquired works by the Dutchman Willem van Aelst and Otto Marseus van Schrieck – both painters of the still-lives, animals, and insects that satisfied the Medici’s new “taste for nature” – and by the Neapolitan Salvator Rosa, who arrived in Florence in 1639 and remained for ten years, introducing into Tuscany a wind-swept and pre-romantic aspect of painting that is especially visible in his landscapes.
If Cardinal Gian Carlo’s collection demonstrated a considerable interest in the work of his contemporaries, he also remained faithful to Medici tradition in his taste for the efforts of older painters, such as The Madonna of the Goldfinch by Raphael or Parmigianino’s Turkish Slave (now in Parma). His acquisition of the roundels by Francesco Albani and the only securely attributable work by Nicholas Poussin (The Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the National Gallery in London) likewise documents his adherence to the classicizing tendencies of Roman painting in the 1640s. Mattias, who owned a St. Francis by Ribera (now in the Pitti), was a dedicated patron of the painter of battle scenes Jacques Courtois. Curtois was called il Borgognone, an appropriate choice given Mattias’s position as the grand duke’s general. Mattias also sponsored Livio Mehus, a painter from Cortona of Dutch origin who is today almost forgotten but who had as a second patron Mattias’s great-nephew the grand prince Ferdinand.
If Cardinal Gian Carlo’s collection demonstrated a considerable interest in the work of his contemporaries, he also remained faithful to Medici tradition in his taste for the efforts of older painters, such as The Madonna of the Goldfinch by Raphael or Parmigianino’s Turkish Slave (now in Parma). His acquisition of the roundels by Francesco Albani and the only securely attributable work by Nicholas Poussin (The Adoration of the Shepherds, now in the National Gallery in London) likewise documents his adherence to the classicizing tendencies of Roman painting in the 1640s. Mattias, who owned a St. Francis by Ribera (now in the Pitti), was a dedicated patron of the painter of battle scenes Jacques Courtois. Curtois was called il Borgognone, an appropriate choice given Mattias’s position as the grand duke’s general. Mattias also sponsored Livio Mehus, a painter from Cortona of Dutch origin who is today almost forgotten but who had as a second patron Mattias’s great-nephew the grand prince Ferdinand.
Some Works Acquired by Cardinal Giovan Carlo
Raphael, Madonna of the Gold Finch, Uffizi
This panel was commissioned by the merchant Lorenzo Nasi to celebrate his wedding to Sandra Canigiani at the beginning of 1506. Following the collapse of the Nasi house, the painting was much damaged and had to be restored by Nasi's son, Giovambattista. By 1646 it was already the property of the Medici. (Gregori, op. cit., p. 167.)
Parmigianino, The Turkish Slave, Parma
Nicholas Poussin, The Adoration of the Shepherds, National Gallery, London
Jusepe de Ribera, St. Francis, Pitti
Of a particularly forceful expressiveness, this figure of a saint belongs to Ribera's fully mature period. This painting, cited in a 1659 inventory of Mattias de' Medici's property, was in Cosimo III's collection in the Pitti Palace by 1669. (Gregori, op. cit. p. 563.)
Marco Chiarini, "From Palace to Museum: The History of the Florentine Galleries"; Paintings in the Uffizi & Palatine Galleries, Boston, 1994, p. 12.