Ex pluribus unum: The Commesso Portraits and Ferdinando I de' Medici

• In Event: Medici Materials: From Substance to Artefact I

Abstract

Stones are among the materials for which Ferdinando I de' Medici vowed a particular interest which leads the Grand Duke in 1588 to found the Galleria dei Lavori, to collect precious, hard and soft stones.
The Portrait of Cosimo I (1597, Museo dell'Opificio) give he opportunity to question the nature of this interest and also the meaning of the "invention" of the technique of commesso piano and the complex interplay between the effigy, its materiality and the "operative chain" of its manufacturing. The image, the materials and the production process work together for an allegorical incorporation of the State into the effigy of the prince, as an image of moral, political, mystic body, but mainly as a territory. This corresponds to the particular action of Ferdinand I in the juridic and economic government of the Grand Ducal territories, echoing the first theoretical elaborations of the ragion di stato.

Author

• Antonella Fenech Kroke, Centre national de la recherche scientifique and Centre André Chastel