Ferdinando Cospi: A Medici Diplomat and Art Agent

• In Event: The Medici and the Seas II: Maritime Trajectories

Abstract

My paper will focus on the role of Ferdinando Cospi as a diplomat and art agent for the Medici in Bologna. Cospi, a Medici by birth and a childhood playfellow of Ferdinando II, used his role as a Commander of the Knights of Saint Stephen to import Islamic artworks from the Middle East. My paper will explore the key role Cospi played in procuring foreign artworks for the Medici court and in dispatching them to Florence. Drawing on hundreds of unpublished letters exchanged between Cospi and members of the Medici family in matters of procurement, commission and shipping, the paper seeks to outline the sea routes and diplomatic networks which allowed the importation of such objects, as well as the land routes and means of transport which Cospi coordinated from Bologna, through the Appenines, to Florence.

Author

• Federica Gigante, Warburg Institute, University of London