Vincenzo Danti

The great sculptor Vincenzo Danti wrote one of the longest poems to have survived from a Renaissance artist, but the text's close thematic and conceptual connections to its author's art have gone entirely unnoticed. What Danti's poem and sculpture share, this essay argues, is a concern with mystified identity. Danti's poetic sensibility stands at odds with the biographical frameworks that typically guide the interpretation of Renaissance art and literature. At the same time, his example shows how much there is to be gained from an investigation of how artists learned to be writers, and of what came of those efforts.

Paper delivered at the conference 'Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (Magnus Etruriae Dux)', held a the Archivio di Stato in Florence, organized by the Medici Archive Project and the Archivio di Stato di Firenze, May 29-30, 2014.

In the paintings of the Quartiere di Leone X in the Palazzo Vecchio and their descriptions in the Ragionamenti, Giorgio Vasari represents the illustrious men of the Medici family as the ideal patrons of the arts. According to Vasari, an ideal patron is generous, able to appreciate and criticize art, and knows his artists. In a letter to Michelangelo, Vasari states that as a patron, Duke Cosimo I even exceeds his ancestors in generosity, dignity, and grandeur. Vasari describes him as acting ‘not as a patron, but as our protector and a father to us all.' Was Cosimo as loyal and engaged as Vasari sketched him? Based on archival research, this paper argues that Cosimo was not only actively engaged in planning the decorations, but also influenced the daily practice and composition of Vasari's team, and asked for updates about the personal matters of Vasari and some of his assistants.