Review of Bartolomeo Ammanati: i palazzi Grifoni e Giugni. La nuova architettura dei palazzi fiorentini del secondo Cinquecento, by Marco Calafati, in Sixteent Century Journal, XLV/3 (2014), pp. 792-93 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana 42, 2018
This architectural and urban study revises the history of Rome’s Palazzo Medici (later Palazzo Madama) in the Campo Marzio, from the 1470s through 1521. Originating from a fine Renaissance house built up and improved by two different curial administrators amongst the medieval and ancient remains of the baths of Alexander Severus, the building and grounds of the future palace were rented in 1503 by Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici (later Pope Leo X), and subsequently purchased and expanded by his family. Because even basic facts affecting this project have remained unclear, the neighborhood’s specifics are here re-examined. Utilizing archeological, legal and cultural materials, both written and drawn, this article provides a comprehensive history of relevant properties: a chronicle of owners and transactions – including previously unpublished 1509 Medici contracts – and maps of their precise topographic boundaries. Within this detailed context are set the famous drawings produced after the cardinal was elected pope in March 1513: the Medici palace designs by Giuliano da Sangallo (GDSU 7949 A) and Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (GDSU 1259 Ar,v). These Uffizi drawings, both made during the first two years of Leo’s papacy, have been repeatedly cited as important examples of High Renaissance palace design and urbanism, and of Medicean aspirations. Based on reconstructions and hypotheses created by Christoph Frommel and Manfredo Tafuri in the mid-1980s, current literature still accepts that these Sangallo sheets depict only two schemes, both appropriating a huge area between Piazza Navona and today’s via della Scrofa. This article demonstrates that the Uffizi sheets in fact depict three dif- ferent palace designs, each carefully planned to capitalize on previous structures and ancient monuments, and each dependent upon but smaller than the last. In particular, detailed analyses show that Antonio the Younger made two designs: a “twin” palace scheme, and a later, modified – and previously unrecognized – “shrunken” palace project. Antonio’s urban design sketch, which shows his shrunken palace within an extended grid of existing but beautified streets and piazzas, depicts a situation in early spring 1515 when Medici ambitions were being refocused. By then, their family palace had become a secondary ele- ment within an urban ensemble which emphasized the two adjacent, Medici-allied public institutions: the Studium Urbis and the French national church. The three Sangallo projects thus render a sequence on this site from euphoric overreaching in 1513 to pragmatic idealism in 1515, illus- trating and illuminating the shifting goals and strategies of Leo X, and his Medici relatives.
«Palazzo Magnani in Bologna», edited by Sergio Bettini, foreword by Andrea Emiliani, texts by Sergio Bettini, Richard J. Tuttle, Samuel Vitali, Grazia Lucisano (documents) Milano, Motta, 2009, pp. 33-89, 2009
Towards the Renaissance palace typology: Palazzo da Uzzano’s architectural innovations (1408-1417)
Annali di Architettura, 2022
This study aims to introduce a palace built by the brothers Agnolo and Niccolò da Uzzano between 1408 and 1417 as a crucial turning point for the development of the Renaissance Florentine palace typology. Additionally, it shows how the Uzzano design responds to the location on the River Arno and how it embodies the new prominent financial and political status of its owners. The ground-floor plan displays three features that were unique at the time of its construction and became the standard design for palatial domestic architecture built in Europe for the following three centuries: first, a regular courtyard at the center with four loggias; second, the alignment of the main entrance with the courtyard; and third, the location of the main staircase of the palace at the end of the loggia parallel to the main facade.
Il saggio presenta un bilancio storiografico relativamente ad alcuni temi che pertengono la vicenda iniziale di Palazzo Medici a Firenze: cronologia, committenza, linguaggio architettonico e progettista.
Studi di Storia dell'Arte, 2023
Depicted in Castiglione's "Book of the Courtier" as a model of perfection for all people living at court, Giuliano de' Medici (1479-1516) surrounded himself with the most talented men of the period, involving both Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael in commissions meant to shape his courtly dream of emulation. Thanks to an unpublished list of bills in the Archivio Salviati in Pisa, drawn up for Domenico Canigiani in 1515, the paper casts new light on the composition of Giuliano's household in Rome, at the time of his royal match with Philiberte of Savoy in 1515, and confirms the provisioni paid to Leonardo da Vinci for eight months in that year. The palaeographic analysis of folios in the Carte Strozziane, where two lists of people are generally considered to be related to Raphael, leads instead to definitely deny the artist's presence in the evidences concerning Giuliano's household in Rome.