LIGOZZI, Jacopo

The scene is set against a background of sky with fading tones, dominated by a star that stands out like a jewel against the deep blue of the clouds. The Magi and their pages are arranged along two diagonal lines, meeting at the central group with the Virgin, Child, and St Joseph under an elegant canopy. The asymmetrical nature of the composition is based on a type that was widely used in the Veneto area, and also, in the last two decades of the century, by Carracci for the Bargellini Altarpiece and the Madonna enthroned with Sts Matthew, Francis and John the Baptist (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden). However, Jacopo Ligozzi did not share the same soft naturalism and the warm atmosphere of the Emilian artists: his is more of a static painting, with a bold mannerist impact, where the protagonists are substantially blocked in their pose, taking part in the sumptuous exhibition of fabrics, wall coverings and jewels that the painter studied carefully in his book of sketches for costumes and fabrics.

The altarpiece comes from the church of Santissima Concezione belonging to the Franciscan Tertiary nuns of Suor Angiolina di Foligno, present in Florence since the start of the 15th century. The commission for this painting is part of the group of works ordered in the final decade of the 16th century. The Adoration of the Magi was to hang in one of the altars in the presbytery.

This painting is one of Ligozzi’s earliest works as a painter in Tuscany at a time when he was primarily employed by Grand Duke Francesco I to execute drawings in bodycolour of animals and plants.

Ligozzi treated the subject of the Agony in the Garden on several occasions.

This small panel, originally the door of a piece of furniture, or the back of a mirror, depicts the goddess Fortune, accompanied by all her attributes. The goddess is portrayed balancing on a globe, a symbol of the instability by which she is characterised. The red wings on her left foot indicate her fleetingness. On her right, a crown with a sceptre, an inkwell, two books and a ruler fall from above, all symbols of earthly powers and trades that are subject to the goddess’s volubility. The coins sliding into the vase from a purse and coming out of it transformed into butterflies represent the transience of wealth. A winged figure, possibly a depiction of Time or Death, is offering Fortune a tray with an hourglass and some flowers, a reminder of the passing of time and the transitory nature of worldly goods.

The fragile glass vase that the goddess is holding on the right-hand side could be a tribute to the interest that Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, paid to this kind of object. In fact, glass fusing, an activity Francesco practised as a hobby, was linked to the studies of alchemy, a branch of philosophy for which the Grand Duke harboured a passionate enthusiasm.

The detail of the butterflies, painted in a highly realistic way, reminds us that Ligozzi’s speciality was creating illustrations of plants and animals. Indeed, he produced many of these for both the Grand Duke and for the Bolognese academic and naturalist, Ulisse Aldrovandi.

This painting is dated 1604, a period in which the artist concentrated on scenes from the Passion, a theme that would continue to occupy him into the following decade. Following the demise of Mannerism, Ligozzi selected more somber subjects to appeal to the Florentine Counter-Reformation, the verisimilitude of his scenes and his intensely expressive figures setting him apart from the ostentatious Baroque style fashionable in contemporary Florence.

This meticulously rendered exotic creature recalls that art and science were once on an intellectual continuum. Ligozzi, trained as a miniaturist, began his scientific paintings for Francesco I de’ Medici around 1576.

This oil painting is a full-scale model for one of the numerous table tops fashioned from semiprecious stones in the Grand Ducal Workshops founded by Ferdinando I de’ Medici in 1588.

After a period under the employment of the Habsburg family in Vienna, Jacopo Ligozzi moved to Florence circa 1576 where, swiftly recognised for his exceptional talent, he was engaged by the Medici for the Grand-Ducal workshop. The artist was hired primarily as a draftsman, documenting flora and fauna from the gardens and menageries of the Medici with extraordinary naturalism and detail. Following the death of Giorgio Vasari however, he became capomaestro of the studio, serving Francesco I, Ferdinando I, Cosimo II and Ferdinando II, and was involved in the decoration of the Tribuna, Loggia and the rooms that later became the Uffizi Gallery. He remained in Florence under the patronage of the Medici family for the duration of his career.

Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici was an enthusiastic student of natural history and the physical sciences. One of his correspondents was the naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi, to whom Francesco sent drawings by Ligozzi, his court painter. In the wake of the age of exploration, drawings such as Ligozzi’s were important mediums of study.

The identity of the child and his date of birth are mentioned in an inscription on the bottom right, “6 9bris (6 November) 1617/PRINCEPS LEOPOLDUS OCTAVOGENITUS MEDICEUS AUSTRIACUS”. Leopold was in fact the eighth child of Cosimo II and Maria Maddalena of Austria, and at the time of the portrait, he would have been about six or seven months old, meaning it is certain that the canvas was painted at Pitti in 1618.

The small prince stands out against a background of crimson velvet, wrapped in an embroidered blanket, trimmed with gold, and with his head sunken into a white silk pillow. Although the child’s expression is tender, and in spite of the soft blushing cheeks and a lively, enchanting look, he is shown completely in the style of official portraiture and therefore, the task of this portrait is to show off the rank and wealth of the family. The Medicis, ever mindful of their image as a dynasty, were careful to ensure their infants were portrayed, documenting them at almost every age. Items of this type, shown in different formats, full length or half bust, as well as being part of “series” destined to decorate apartments or representation areas of the palace; they were also sent as gifts to other courts, especially if blood relatives of the grand ducal family.

This painting, previously attributed to Tiberio Titi, brother of Santi and portrait painter to the grand duchy, is actually the work of Jacopo Ligozzi, as recorded in several inventories from 1637 until the latter part of the following century. In fact, the meticulousness that goes into the range of fabrics exhibited in the painting, the sensitivity to natural-looking surfaces, still substantially mannerist, are in line with the style of Ligozzi at the end of the second decade of the 1600s.

This spectacular bird is a blue and gold macaw. Today the species is threatened, but in the later sixteenth century parrots, monkeys, and other foreign-born livestock often accessorized the homes of the European nobility. These birds come from Central and South America, recalling that the Medicis were investors in Columbus’s expeditions.

Born in Verona into a family of artists and craftsmen producing silk, tapestries and arms, Ligozzi did most of his painting in Florence. He showed in his works an initial adhesion to a Mannerism of Michelangiolesque stamp, only later to become an interpreter and popularizer of Venetian painting with its emphasis on colour. With this work we are probably at around the halfway stage in the stylistic development of the artist, who has produced here a somewhat complicated and over-emphatic construction, with twisted, elongated figures arranged in a kind of ideal pyramid. The forms are pleasant and accurate, indicative of an excellent `disegno’ - a technique in which Jacopo Ligozzi excelled, together with pastel drawing and tempera - and remarkable compositional balance.

Ligozzi was clearly responsive to the artistic influences around him. Throughout his career, the artist reveals a debt to Paolo Veronese’s art in his treatment of large-scale paintings, as can be seen in the present work. Moreover, in the figures there is also a clear reference to Giambologna’s work of the same subject in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence.