In
1577 Grand Duke Francesco invited a young, practically unknown artist from Verona
to join his court. Born into a family of artisans and embroiderers, Ligozzi
had already visited Vienna and impressed the Hapsburg court with a series of
remarkably realistic paintings of animals on vellum. In Florence, where he remained
until his death, Ligozzi produced elegant paintings depicting the plants and
animals found in the Medici gardens and menageries. The artist combined technical
refinement with a deep sensitivity to the minutiae of the natural world, not
unlike Leonardo and Dürer before him. Painting directly from live models,
he adopted a rigorous, new approach: he shows many of his plants with their
intricate root systems intact, and he includes newly formed buds as well as
fading petals and leaves, not just a flower in full bloom.
In his later years, Ligozzi became the head of the Galleria dei Lavori, or grand-ducal workshop, where he provided botanical designs for sumptuous embroidered textiles and the newly popular medium of pietre dure, mosaics of semiprecious stones and colored marbles.
Giovanna
Garzoni, one of the most important female artists in Italian history, was renowned
throughout the courts of Europe. Born in the region of the Marches in central
Italy, she studied in Rome, dedicating herself to botanical painting and the
new genre of still-life painting. During the nine years she spent in Florence
(1642-1651) in the service of Ferdinando II and his brothers, the cardinals
Giovan Carlo and Leopoldo, she became one of the preferred artists of the Medici
court. Her paintings depict plants with their roots and flowers, in the scientific
tradition of Ligozzi, but she animates her compositions by adding insects, reptiles,
and small fruits and nuts, each casting a faint shadow on the page. Overflowing
ceramic bowls of fruit were another favorite theme, containing fruits that were
sought after in the seventeenth century to grace the tables of the aristocracy
not only as a pleasure to the palate but also as a delight to the eye.
These vibrant paintings display a conscious yet subtle balance between scientific realism and decorative effect. Garzoni’s abundant bouquets, some in reflecting glass vases, are set on a marble slab or table, adding for the first time a sense of space. She preferred cultivated varieties of anenomes (the favorite flower of Giovan Carlo), tulips, narcissi, carnations, jasmine, bellflowers, and buttercups.
Bimbi,
a Florentine artist with little formal training, painted still lifes of remarkable
scientific accuracy. He specialized in “portraits from nature,” that
is, the portrayal not of persons but of flowers, plants, and animals. His canvases
decorated the walls of many aristocratic villas. These large-scale scenes of
monstrous and odd specimens of flowers, vegetables, and fruits, which were grown
in gardens amid fierce competition for the largest or most unusual hybrid, are
complete with inscriptions listing the name of each specimen and when and where
it was gathered. Notwithstanding this scientific approach, Bimbi’s subjects
are arranged in picturesque compositions against landscape backgrounds, piled
high on costly carpets and drapery, or placed among antique statuary. His patron,
Cosimo III (1642-1723), was a gloomy and eccentric ruler, but he had a decided
interest in botany, perhaps spurred by his rigid vegetarian diet, and the arts
flourished under his reign. Also fond of exotic animals, he constructed a large
menagerie in the Boboli garden behind Palazzo Pitti in Florence.