Abstract:

This dissertation traces the Medici engagement with the New World and its effects on collecting and art production at their court and within their circle in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Although the Italian peninsula did not assume a direct role in the political and religious conquest of the Americas, and Italians were not even allowed to travel there without permission from Spain or Portugal, Italians did actively explore the Americas in a vicarious way. The Medici Grand Dukes of Florence in particular were vigorously involved in illustrating its land and people and in collecting New World objects. Through a close examination of archival sources, such as inventories and Medici letters to and from their ambassadors, agents, and friends, this study uncovers the provenance, history and meaning of works from the Americas in Medici collections and shows how a system of gift giving and exchange facilitated collecting and the acquisition of knowledge surrounding the New World. The dissertation demonstrates that this process of integrating New World novelties at the Medici court impacted their cultural production and epistemology. The phases of this process include the categorization of the New World in Duke Cosimo's Guardaroba Nuova, Duke Francesco's documentation of the Americas in the works of Jacopo Ligozzi and Duke Ferdinando's political display of the New World in the Ludovico Buti's frescoes in the Armeria of the Uffizi. Finally and paradoxically, as more knowledge of the New World was gained, representations of the Americas became less ethnographically accurate and were based instead on imagination. The last part of the dissertation is therefore devoted to the role of allegory and invention in Medici court artist Giovanni Stradano's prints of the New World in the Americae Retectio and Nova Reperta series.