Conférence : “Cosimo I de’Medici and Granducal Florence”, Londres, The Warburg Institute, le 29 janvier 2020, à 19h

Jonathan Davies (University of Warwick): ‘”He was supremely an imitator of [them]”: Cosimo I, Cosimo the Elder, and Lorenzo the Magnificent’

Gemma Cornetti (Warburg Institute): ‘Engraved Portraits for the Medici’
Throughout his lifetime, Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici gave attention, unprecedented in the history of the Medici family, to the commissioning of portraits of himself and his ancestors in various artistic media. In contrast to painted and sculpted portraits, portrait prints bearing his likeness, and issued when he was alive, did not stem from his direct commission – Cosimo was largely a recipient of them. In this paper, by focusing on these portrait prints, I aim to challenge modern concepts applied to portraiture such as ‘self-fashioning’, ‘self-projection’ or ‘propaganda’, and stress the greater role of printmakers and courtiers in the construction and dissemination of Cosimo’s likeness.