Lorenzo de' Medici

Revisión y estudio de la colección de esculturas de tipo clásico propiedad del entonces Banco Urquijo, en el marco de un volumen dedicado a la totalidad de la colección de arte del banco, redactado junto a otros autores como X. de Salas, E. Lafuente Ferrari o M. Díaz Padrón con motivo de una gran exposición realizada en 1982.
Resultaron ser todas ellas de época renacentista y neoclásica, éstas logradas imitaciones o creaciones de taller romano o español. Destacan una muy buena copia del Augusto de Prima Porta, un retrato bicolor de Lorenzo de Medici, o el busto de Carlos III ejecutado y firmado en 1764 por Juan Pascual de Mena, que es pareja del que posee la Real Academia de San Fernando.
Tras fusiones con el Banco Hispano Americano y el Banco Central, que engrandecieron la colección (y produjeron dos nuevos catálogos), el Banco Urquijo mismo terminó desapareciendo. Hoy en día todas las colecciones forman parte del fondo artístico del Banco Santander, cf. por último J. M. Cruz Valdovinos, “La colección Santander”, Museo y Territorio, nos. 2-3, 2009-2010, pp. 87-100, en http://www.museoyterritorio.com/pdf/museoyterritorio02-8.pdf

This article explores the implications of a recently discovered set of letters by an unknown Florentine concerning Heinrich Isaac’s extraordinary tenure in Florence (ca. 1485-95). Isaac is here revealed to be interacting with local Florentine music collectors and composers, and intimately involved with the rehearsals and revisions of the latter’s works. These documents both illuminate and raise questions about how the pedagogical environment worked at a critical time when the influx of northern music and musicians transformed local compositional activity and levels of music literacy in Florence. These changes are considered in relation to both Medici cultural programmes, and the experimental nature of the polyphony being composed, collected and copied into Florentine sources at just this time.

Otta vioVannini, 1635 'Lorenzo de' Medici among the artists in the sculpture garden' Palazzo Pitti, Florence The purpose of this essay is to assess Lorenzo de Medici's role as a patron of the arts during the time that he ruled over the city of Florence. However, no research would be complete without a brief analysis of the social and historical context of the period and the evolution of the role play ed by patronage.

In 1795, publisher John M’Creery printed in Liverpool The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici called The Magnificent. A huge editorial success, it was written by William Roscoe, a quite gifted figure, who dedicated himself equally to his legal profession and passion for literature, philanthropy and art collecting. This essay aims at providing a close reading of his celebrated Medicean biography, pointing out the fundamental role it played in the creation of the Florentine Renaissance myth. Deconstructing Roscoe’s idealization of Lorenzo’s personality will not only allow to highlight a transitional stage in the European historiographical tradition, between the end of the Ancien Régime and the birth of liberal states, but also to observe from within the tricks employed in writing a biography, an ambiguous genre always suspended between history and fiction.

Sintesi della considerazione dello storiografo inglese William Roscoe in merito al Rinascimento italiano attraverso l'analisi della sua opera di "The Life of Lorenzo de' Medici", con particolare attenzione alla prefazione. Considerazioni sulla traduzione italiana dell'opera.

The law "De testamentis", passed by the Florentine legislative councils in March 1477 under pressure from Lorenzo de’ Medici, often recurs in historical narrative in connection with the tragic event that occurred the following year, the Pazzi conspiracy, being considered one of its underlying causes. So far, however, no detailed survey has been carried out about the estate litigation between the Borromei and Pazzi families, which drove the legislative action of Lorenzo the Magnificent, nor about the law itself, by which the interpretation of the statutory rules concerning female rights on inheritance was substantially changed while leaving the text untouched. My study aims to fill this gap in the context of a more general survey of the policies implemented by Lorenzo de’ Medici towards the major families of the Florentine patriciate.

"Reframing Bertoldo and His Legacy" served as the main essay in the exhibition catalogue "Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence," accompanying the corresponding show on view at The Frick Collection (September 2019 - January 2020). This essay reviews the extant documents and scholarship on Bertoldo while reconsidering the artist's oeuvre, method of manufacture, and relationship with the Medici family, especially Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Following the flight of the Medici at the end of the 15th century, Sandro Botticelli fell under the influence of Girolamo Savonarola. If the aging artist did not blindly abide by the injunctions that the prophet of the Florentine republic delivered to painters, he was not impervious, however, to the anathemas uttered against poets. He who once entered, with his Spring, in competition with poems by the members of Lorenzo the Magnificent's inner circle, now strived, with his Mystic Nativity, to equal Saint John's prophetic Word. Grounded in a literal meaning whose substance is spelt out in an inscription in ancient Greek running above the painting, he therein developed the three facets of the spiritual signification of exegesis: allegorical, tropological and anagogical. The only work ever signed and dated by the painter, this late canvas thus takes on a prophetic dimension, and presents itself as a vision of the fulfillment of chapter 12 in the Apocalypse.

Blake Wilson
Paper delivered at conference: “Henricus Isaac (ca. 1450/55–1517): Composition – Reception – Interpretation,” University of Vienna, July 1-3, 2017.

Published in: Henricus Isaac (ca. 1450–1517): Composition – Reception – Interpretation WIENER FORUM FÜR ÄLTERE MUSIKGESCHICHTE, eds. S. Gasch, M. Grassl, B. Lodes and A. V. Rabe (Vienna: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 2019), 153-176.

Remembering Isaac Remembering Lorenzo: The Musical Legacy of Quis dabit

In a lively series of articles and communications during the 1970s, Allan Atlas, Martin Staehelin, and Richard Taruskin focused our attention on Isaac's Lorenzo lament, Quis dabit capiti meo aquam, especially its relationship to his Missa salva nos. This paper seeks a fresh view of the motivic structure of Quis dabit, in particular its almost obsessive deployment of a figure drawn from the mass that is re-contextualized in the motet, and subsequently widely adopted as an expressive figura. This will then provide the basis for a close look at the legacy of this iconic work in the decades after the death of Lorenzo (1492), when early madrigal composers again took up a Poliziano text dealing with the subject of mourning, this time from his Fabula d’Orfeo. Also at issue here is the extent to which the citation of musical and textual material linked to Quis dabit (esp. in the madrigal by Francesco Layolle, whose direct allusion to Isaac’s music is the particular focus of this paper) invoked Florentine cultural practice of the Laurentian era at a time (the 1520s) when its composer had been dead but a few years, and when Florentine cultural & political identity hung in the balance. Or to put the question a different way: what meanings did the music of one of Isaac's most obviously Laurentian works hold shortly after the composer's death, when the city's political and cultural life was in flux?

Joseph Beuys e Lucrezia De Domizio - De Rerum Natura è un libro scritto da Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, architetto, urbanista, fotografo e compositore che ha collaborato per molti anni con John Cage e Merce Cunningham. Il libro è una raccolta di 33 testi scritti da Pimenta in oltre 30 anni di collaborazione in progetti comuni con Lucrezia De Domizio, Baronessa Durini. Il libro rivela non solo molte tracce dell'opera e del pensiero di Beuys, non conosciute dalle persone in generale, ma anche dettagli dell'intensa collaborazione tra la Baronessa italiana e l'artista tedesco. Il libro conta anche foto rare, alcune delle quali fatti dal Barone Durini, marito di Lucrezia, scienziato amico di Beuys. Invitato dal Barone e dalla Baronessa Durini, Joseph Beuys ha vissuto parte dei suoi ultimi anni di vita sulle montagne italiane, in Abruzzo, in una piccola casa in un borgo medievale chiamato Bolognano. La vita di Beuys in Italia è anche l'argomento del libro di Pimenta - una celebrazione ai cento anni di Joseph Beuys.

More than five centuries after its creation, Botticelli’s Primavera still resisted all attempts at interpreting it. Even though numerous studies had allowed identifying every single element of the composition – from the nine main characters to the smallest daisy – it remained, as a whole, an enigma. While integrating previous results, the present study adopts a new point of view: stepping a few steps backwards behind the spectator, the author reveals the role played in the composition by the observer himself. This unprecedented perspective provides the key to the relations between the characters and the painting appears as the staging of a double love story, lived at the heart of the Quattrocento by real protagonists: the lord of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici; his eternal love, the chaste Lucrezia; his ephemeral love, the so seducing Simonetta. In the background, stand out the figures of those who inspired the work or contributed to its making: the philosopher Marsilio Ficino; the learned Cristoforo Landino; the commissioner, Lorenzo the Magnificent; finally the artist, Sandro Botticelli. Thus is revealed the idea that the painting had been expressing ever since its creation by its very beauty: that physical and mortal beauty has no other function, in the divine plan, than to lead the souls to eternal and divine beauty. The bilingual text, in French and Italian, is richly illustrated.

The powerful Medici family ruled the Republic of Florence on and off for three centuries, and the patronage of the arts is perhaps their greatest and lasting contribution to Western society.  When we hear the word Renaissance, we often first think of a work of art or one of the great artists of the period.  The Renaissance was the rebirth of classical civilization and it is in the arts that great progress and visual achievements were made, beginning in Florence and spreading throughout Italy and eventually Northern Europe.  Renaissance art was radical and new; it was impacted by and would impact literature, philosophy, religion and culture.  When examining six selected Medici commissioned works of art, the six different Italian Renaissance artists can clearly be given the label of genius.  They were geniuses because what they created was new, completely different from past works of art.  These works were considered so beautiful and exceptional, that even by today’s artistic standards, they maintain their well-deserved accolades.  The artists were revered during their lifetimes and patronized to create art with a purpose.  In fifteenth and sixteenth century Florence, art was mostly commissioned to display civic pride or devotion to the Christian faith.  The Medici were able to rule for so long with many supporters due to their unique patronage and desire to use the visual arts to gain and retain support for their control over the city that was the birthplace of the Renaissance.

De Nicopolis à la mort de Charles le Téméraire, une ‎‎succession d’événements contribua au ‎‎‎remaniement de l’Europe politique du XVe siècle. C’est à travers les ‎peintures de ‎Gentile, Gozzoli, ‎Marmion, et Van Eyck, rattachées a la cour des ducs de ‎Bourgogne et des Médicis que ‎Abolala ‎‎Soudavar ‎nous fait redécouvrir ce ‎siècle de renaissance.‎ -"C’est un livre qui ouvre des ‎perspectives ‎‎nouvelles et qui sur bien des points me parait très ‎‎convaincant. Bien sûr, c’est un livre ‎d’histoire de ‎‎l’art mais c’est bien plus"; Pierre Rosenberg de l'Académie française et ‎prés-dir. honoraire, Musée du ‎Louvre. -"Abolala ‎Soudavar nous offre ici une étude ‎stimulante et novatrice. Ses conclusions ‎s’appuient sur ‎des ‎données ‎historiques solides et sur une ‎étude comparative très intéressante" ‎Bertrand Schnerb, prof ‎Univ de ‎Lille

Scholars of Botticelli's Munich Pietà, which is known to have come from the Florentine church of San Paolino, often noted the lack of information concerning the fabric of the church prior to its destruction in the second half of the seventeenth century. In light of Poliziano's and Lorenzo de' Medici's active involvement, this lacuna has been particularly regrettable. Based on newly discovered archival documents, this paper will reconstruct this important Florentine priory. Investigating the architecture, interior decoration and patronage networks, it will reinstate San Paolino within its urban context and shed new light on the setting of the high altarpiece.

The famous "Seal of Nero, a Roman intaglio depicting Apollo, Marsyas and Olympus, was once in the collection of Lorenzo il Magnifico and is now in the National Museum of Naples. Two gems related to that "Seal of Nero" are published here for the first time: one, a severely damaged intaglio kept in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, is supposed to date from the third quarter of the first century BC. Another gem with a similar motif, a refined Renaissance cameo, recentlya ppeared in Oxfordshire and is now in a private collection in London. It is presumed that this perfectly preserved piece originally was in the possession of the Medici. The author considers a possible attribution of this work to the young Michelangelo Buonarroti and discusses a copy shown in a portrait painting by Botticelli now in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt on the Main. (summary by Matthias Barth)

Giovanni Tornabuoni was a leading character in Renaissance Florence. He was director of the Medici Bank in Rome, banker to the Pope, leader of the Tornabuoni family. He built the beautiful family Palazzo which today is known as Palazzo Tornabuoni and he was the Patron of the Tornabuoni Chapel at Santa Maria Novella. Giovanni was also a trusted advisor to his nephew Lorenzo il Magnifico. Giovanni Tornabuoni's leading role in Quattrocento Florence is not recognized as he would deserve.

Complice soprattutto l’appartenenza alla cerchia medicea, quello di Giovanni Lanfredini (1437-1490) è un nome che compare spesso in numerose pubblicazioni su Lorenzo il Magnifico e sulla Firenze del Rinascimento. La definizione con cui viene caratterizzato è solitamente quella di diplomatico, ma Lanfredini fu anche e prima di tutto un mercante-banchiere.
La carriera di ambasciatore intesa in senso stretto occupò solo gli ultimi sei anni della sua vita, dal 1484 al 1490. Cercando di far emergere il lato meno noto di un rappresentante di un gruppo sociale «nuovo», molto attivo, ma destinato a rimanere in una posizione intermedia, la biografia tocca molte tematiche della storiografia attuale, dalle scelte politiche e strategie familiari alle alleanze matrimoniali, dal patronato alla committenza artistica. Parallelamente al legame coi Medici è emerso quello altrettanto fecondo con Ferrara e gli Este, con Venezia, con gli Sforza, con Ferrante d’Aragona e papa Innocenzo VIII. Rilevante è infine il rapporto con la cultura. Alcuni dei nomi cui Lanfredini scelse di legare il proprio sono quelli di Ficino, Poliziano, Luigi Pulci, Antonio Bonciani e Pico della Mirandola, Paolo Uccello, Zanobi Strozzi, i fratelli Antonio e Piero Pollaiolo, dei quali fu mecenate, e Sperandio da Mantova, che ne ha fissato le fattezze in un medaglione bronzeo.
Recensioni:
- C. FINZI in «Il pensiero politico», XL (2007), p. 582.
- F. W. KENT in «Renaissance Quarterly», 61 (2008), pp. 872-873.
- P. M. DOVER in «Sixteenth Century Journal», XL/3 (2009), pp. 963-965.
- M. M. ELBL in «Speculum», luglio 2009, pp. 768-769.
- P. FARENGA in «Roma nel Rinascimento», 2010, pp. 161-163.
- R. BLACK in «English Historical Review», CXXV (n. 513), aprile 2010, pp. 411-412.

Notizie:
- «Nuova Rivista Storica», ottobre/dicembre 2008, p. 919.
- «Medioevo latino», XXIX (2008), p. 894.
- F. DE VITT in «Archivio Veneto», CLXXV (2010), pp. 221-222.

... Alii autem, praeter haec, quae dixi, nos quandoque legentes et quasi docentes audiverunt, etsi ipsi quidem quasi discipuli; non tamen revera discipuli; non enim tantum mihi adrogo, ut docuerim 442 Page 15. THE MYTH OF THE PLATONIC ACADEMY OF FLORENCE 443 ...

ISBN 978 88 222 6274 5 PREMESSA Alcuni anni fa, sfogliando una raccolta di disegni architettonici settecenteschi nella collezione del Victoria & Albert Museum, mi sono inaspettatamente trovata fra le mani cinque grandi tavole inedite che mostravano nei dettagli, in pianta e in alzato, Poggioreale, la leggendaria villa fatta costruire nel tardo Quattrocento, fuori Napoli, dal principe ereditario Alfonso d' . Per verificare l'attendibilità della documentazione ritrovata ho iniziato a svolgere indagini sull'origine della raccolta e sulla storia della villa, appassionandomi, così, alle 'delizie' e ai misteri della perduta dimora aragonese: un'opera fra le più celebrate e citate, ma meno conosciute, dell'architettura residenziale del Rinascimento. Più lo studio si approfondiva, più si estendeva e diramava. Conquistandomi, perché, insieme alla possibilità di ricostruire l'aspetto dell'intera villa, vi riconoscevo l'occasione per affrontare temi generali e sostanziali dell'architettura, come la circolazione di idee e modelli, la concezione e lo sviluppo condivisi del progetto e infine i significati e le intime motivazioni, spesso ignorate, delle maggiori imprese architettoniche e del riferimento alle antichità, ossia l'essenza di un'opera 'rinascimentale'.

This book presents the scholarship of numerous archival researchers, art historians, conservators, curators, and scientists. Therefore, there are some discrepancies of attributions and dates between the various essays, which reflect the opinions of their authors, and the catalogue entries, which reflect the opinions of the curators of the exhibition.

Eine ganze Menge der aus der Bibliotheca Corviniana bekannten Werke waren bis zum Tod Matthias’ nicht im Druck erschienen. In der Mehrzahl beinhalten die Corvinen nicht die uns heute bekannten, vollständigen Texte. Unsere Aufgabe ist es, die Qualität der Texte, welche die lateinischen Übersetzungen griechischer Autoren enthalten, zu analysieren und zu präsentieren. Diese Analyse darf aber nicht durch Vergleich mit den heute bekannten Texten (editiones criticae), sondern anhand einer Nebeneinanderstellung mit den damals zugänglichen Handschriften und Inkunabeln vorgenommen werden.
Ein Viertel der erhalten gebliebenen authentischen Corvinen (216) enthält Übersetzungen griechischer Autoren ins Lateinische. In 57 Handschriften befinden sich Opera der klassischen griechischen, der griechisch-patristischen und der byzantinischen Literatur. Die ca. 100 Werke von 46 Autoren wurden von 32 Gelehrten ins Lateinische übersetzt.

It is an excerpt of the book: "La villa medicea di Poggio a Caiano tra l'Atene degli Acciaiuoli ed il Granducato della Baciocchi" (The Medicean villa of Poggio a Caiano between the Athens of Acciaiuoli family and the Grand Duchy of Elisa Baciocchi). Here you can read the index, the introduction, the two appendices and the bibliography.

Estratto del libro "La villa medicea di Poggio a Caiano tra l'Atene degli Acciaiuoli ed il Granducato della Baciocchi". Si può qui leggere l'indice, l'introduzione, le appendici e la bibliografia.

This documentary appendix appeared in the exhibition catalogue "Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence," accompanying the corresponding show at The Frick Collection (September 2019 - January 2020). Nearly 100 period documents relating to the life and oeuvre of Bertoldo were compiled and edited by Lorenz Böninger and Alexander J. Noelle, many of which were discovered during archival research conducted for the exhibition, and subsequently published for the first time in the catalogue.

More than five centuries after its creation, Botticelli’s Primavera still resisted all attempts at interpreting it. Even though numerous studies had allowed identifying every single element of the composition – from the nine main characters to the smallest daisy – it remained, as a whole, an enigma. While integrating previous results, the present study adopts a new point of view: stepping a few steps backwards behind the spectator, the author reveals the role played in the composition by the observer himself. This unprecedented perspective provides the key to the relations between the characters and the painting appears as the staging of a double love story, lived at the heart of the Quattrocento by real protagonists: the lord of Florence, Lorenzo de’ Medici; his eternal love, the chaste Lucrezia; his ephemeral love, the so seducing Simonetta. In the background, stand out the figures of those who inspired the work or contributed to its making: the philosopher Marsilio Ficino; the learned Cristoforo Landino; the commissioner, Lorenzo the Magnificent; finally the artist, Sandro Botticelli. Thus is revealed the idea that the painting had been expressing ever since its creation by its very beauty: that physical and mortal beauty has no other function, in the divine plan, than to lead the souls to eternal and divine beauty.