Lia Markey - Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence

IMAGINING THE AMERICAS
IN MEDICI FLORENCE

IMAGINING THE AMERICAS
IN MEDICI FLORENCE

Lia Markey

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA

This publication is made possible in part from the Barr Ferree Foundation Fund for Publications, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University, and from the Lila Acheson Wallace-Readers Digest Publication Subsidy at the Villa I Tatti.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Markey, Lia, author.

Title: Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence / Lia Markey.

Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary: Studies the impact of the discovery of the Americas on Italian Renaissance art and culture, focusing on the Medici engagement with the New World and its effects on collecting and art production in Florence during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuriesProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015044332 | ISBN 9780271071152 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Medici, House ofArt collectionsHistory. | Indian artCollectors and collectingItalyFlorenceHistory16th century. | Indian artCollectors and collectingItalyFlorenceHistory17th century. | Indian artInfluence. | Art, RenaissanceItalyFlorenceThemes, motives. | Art, ItalianItalyFlorenceThemes, motives. | AmericaIn art.

Classification: LCC N5273.2.M43 M37 2016 | DDC 704.9/4997dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044332

Copyright 2016 The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved

Printed in China by Oceanic Graphic International Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003

The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z 39.481992.

Additional credits: page ii, detail of Alessandro Allori, Indians Catching Geese Using Squash ().

This book is dedicated
with great love to
Richard and Oren Schwartz.

CONTENTS

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Curiosity about the American objects in Florences Museo degli argenti and Detlef Heikamps pioneering study on the Medici and Mexico, discovered early in my studies, initially inspired this book. I am sincerely grateful to Clara Bargellini, who first fostered my interest in the topic and has supported my studies along the way, to Charles Cohen, who made sure I left no source or object unstudied, and to Rebecca Zorach, who pushes my research and thinking in new directions.

This project benefited from two periods in Florence. I thank the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and Gerhard Wolf and Alessandro Nova, directors of the Kunsthistorisches Institut, for their initial assistance with my research. As a fellow at the Villa I Tatti, I completed the manuscript and procured images. This study would not have been possible without the Medici Archive Project at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze. Edward Goldberg supported my research from the start and has helped me enormously with documents, transcriptions, and bibliography. I also thank the projects past and present members: current director Alessio Assonitis, Sheila Barker, Nick Wilding, Brian Sandberg, Maurizio Arfaiolo, Francesca Funis, and especially Mark Rosen. I am grateful to the many librarians and curators of Florence who have helped me over the years, but I particularly wish to thank Giovanna Giusti, Giovanna Rao, and Marzia Faietti.

Several institutions and foundations in the United States aided the research, writing, and production of this book. An Andrew W. Mellon Foundation / ACLS fellowship allowed me to work in the libraries of New York City, and a Walter Read Hovey Memorial Scholarship of the Pittsburgh Foundation financed research trips to Spain and Mexico. A Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Penn Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania provided space and a community for developing the manuscript. Finally, I am especially grateful for three years in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and for the departments generous subvention. Last but not least, a Kress Fellowship from the Renaissance Society of America and a Lila Acheson Wallace-Readers Digest Publication Subsidy at the Villa I Tatti have helped secure photos and usage rights.

I am also indebted to the following groups and individuals who contributed to this study in various phases of development: the Penn Humanities Forum, 201011; the fellows at the Villa I Tatti, 201415; Wanessa Asfora, Andaleeb and James Banta, Cristelle Baskins, Michael Cole, Tom Cummins, Giada Damen, Surekha Davies, Una DElia, Diana Fane, Larry Feinberg, Alessandra Foscati, Leslie Geddes, Laura Giles, Christopher Heuer, Kate Holohan, Liz Horodowich, Barbara Karl, Dana Katz, Jessica Keating, Victoria Kirkham, Michael Koortbojian, Alexandra Korey, Stephanie Leitch, Karen Lloyd, Timothy McCall, Mark McDonald, Abigail Newman, Christina Normore, Irina Oryshkevich, Jill Pederson, Katherine Poole, Diana Presciutti, Meredith Ray, Sheryl Reiss, Alessandra Russo, Matt Shoaf, Larry Silver, Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, Lisa Tice, Lisa Voigt, and Nino Zchomelidse. Dario Brancato, Alessandra Foscati, and Laura Moretti were tremendously helpful with some Italian transcriptions and translations in the final months of editing. Special thanks go to Michael Phillips for his editing prowess at a crucial moment.

I wish also to thank Davide Baldi, Tiziano Casavecchi, Ilaria della Monica, Olexiy Kushniruk, Luisella Santucci, Samantha Vaughn, and particularly Caitlin Henningsen for their help procuring images. Lisa Tice and Pablo Gonzlez Tornel aided with photography. Additionally, photojournalist Anne Ryan, my dear sister, documented nearly inaccessible art throughout Tuscany and has made this book beautiful.

Parts of the text have been published as articles. began as Istoria della terra chiamata la nuova spagna: The History and Reception of Sahagns Codex at the Medici Court, in Colors Between Two Worlds: The Florentine Codex of Bernardino de Sahagn, edited by Gerhard Wolf and Joseph Connors with Louis Waldman (Florence: Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2011), 199220. A short general overview of the Medici and the Americas as seen through archival documents is to be published in 2016 in The Grand Ducal Medici and Their Archive (15371743), edited by Alessio Assonitis and Brian Sandberg (Turnhout: Brepols).

I am grateful to the anonymous readers of the manuscript and especially to editor Ellie Goodman, her assistant Charlee Redman, and copy editor Keith Monley.

Finally, I thank my family for all of their support. While the book is dedicated to my husband and son, I profoundly thank my magnificent parents, Constance and William Markey, for making the Italian Renaissance a part of my life.