At this initial stage of the research my objective is not only to gain a general knowledge of the Vespucci family and its members but also looking at the works of art the family commissioned. It is rather difficult to research on Florence from the UK and, at this stage, investigations can only be carried out online. From a preliminary search (thanks Google!) I came across several information related to the Vespucci’s artistic commissions and the family connections with Florentine painters and humanists of the time. In order to give some sort of order to this ‘meaty’ topic, this part of the blog will be divided into three sections: the palace, the church and the family’s social interaction.
Part 1. The palace
According to Vasari two rooms of the Vespucci palace were decorated with depictions of Botticelli and Piero di Cosimo. In the Life of Botticelli Vasari states: “round an apartment of the house of Giovanni Vespucci […] he painted many pictures enclosed by frames of walnut wood […] with many most lively and beautiful figures”.
Scholars recognized in Botticelli’s Story of Virginia (Accademia Carrara, Bergamo) and Story of Lucretia (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston) the pictures mentioned by Vasari. Illustrating moral examples from early Roman history, they have been generally considered commissions for a wedding. Issues have been raised however on the nature of the panels and their location within the domestic interior: too large to come from cassoni (wedding chests) they probably functioned as headboards for beds. A third panel by Botticelli representing Venus and Mars (National Gallery of London) is widely considered to be a Vespucci commission. From the tree-trunk on which Mars sleeps wasps are swarming: wasps are an allusion to the name of the Vespucci in whose coat of arms they appear.
Botticelli, Venus and Mars
In the Life of Piero di Cosimo Vasari remembers that Piero painted ‘bacchanalis scenes […] wherein he made such strange fauns, satyrs, sylvan gods, little boys […] Sylenus is riding with many kids […]. These representations have been identified with Piero’s The Discovery of Honey (Worcester Art Museum) and the Misfortune of Silenus (Fogg Museum, Cambridge). As previously stated (Dennis Geronimus, Piero di Cosimo) the hornets of the Misfortune are a ‘close visual pun’ on the wasps, the Vespucci name and - therefore - the family.
Piero di Cosimo, The discovery of honey
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the information you are collecting on the Vespucci as patrons of the arts. My husband and I have been preparing a new edition of our translation of a selection of Vasari's Lives for Oxford, and I was searching out information on the Vespucci with whom Vasari was lodged when he came to Florence as a boy. ~~Julia Bondanella
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