Raphael, Cellini & a Renaissance banker. The patronage of Bindo Altoviti

This book examines the patronage and life of Bindo Altoviti (1491-1556), a papal banker who divided his activities between Rome and Florence. His collection, while not large, included striking and innovative works by Raphael, Michelangelo, Benvenuto Cellini, Francesco Salviati, Jacopo Sansovino, and Giorgio Vasari. In addition, Bindo excavated for ancient sculpture at Hadrian's Villa, and was a distinguished patron of music. Bindo Altoviti is equally fascinating for his intersections with banking, papal politics, control of staple goods in Rome, import of exotica, and the exile republican movement committed to the ouster of the Medici from Florence. As a patron, Bindo Altoviti is especially interesting because he was not a ruler or a powerful prelate, and not directly related to the major Italian dynasties, but rather was a private patron of a type not often studied. This volume considers a wide variety of issue. Bindo's banking and politics are explored. Essays examine Bindo's portraits by Raphael (in the National Gallery of Art, Washington) and Cellini (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston), and explore the dispersal of the Altoviti patrimony in the nineteenth century. The book contains a complete catalogue of works known to have been owned or commissioned by Bindo Altoviti, as well as historically related works and transcriptions of inventories of the Altoviti collection. A great deal of new documentary evidence on Bindo's biography, banking, and collecting is presented here for the first time. Numerous distinguised authors have contributed essays to this innovative and comprehensive study of a Renaissance patron. The book accompanies an exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, 2003-4.



Indice:
Lenders;
Foreword;
Acknowledgments;
Introduction;
Chronology;
Il Gran Bindo Huomo Raro et Singhulare: The Life of Bindo Altoviti, Donatella Pegazzano;
Bindo Altoviti, Renaissance Banker and Papal Financier, Melissa Meriam Bullard;
A Banker as Patron, Donatella Pegazzano;
Raphael's Portrait of Bindo Altoviti, David Alan Brown;
Desire and Gravitas in Bindo's Portraits, Jodi Cranston;
Benvenuto Cellini's Bindo Altoviti and Its Predecessors, Dimitrios Zikos;
Faenza Maiolica Services of the 1520S for the Florentine Nobility, Timothy Wilson;
Vasari's Decorations for Bindo Altoviti's Palazzo and Villa, Donatella Pegazzano;
Bindo Altoviti and Music, Jane A. Bernstein;
Italy, Germany, America: The Migration of a Raphael Portrait, Jane Van Nimmen;
The Afterlife of Cellini's Bust of Bindo Altoviti, Alan Chong;
Destruction and Preservation: The History of the Frescoes and Stucchi from Palazzo Altoviti, Paola Nicita Misiani;
Florentine Fuorusciti at the Time of Bindo Altoviti, Paolo Simoncelli;
Portraits of Florentine Exiles, Philippe Costamagna;
Catalogue of works associated with Bindo Altoviti;
Bindo Altoviti's Ancient Sculpture, Donatella Pegazzano;
Ancient sculpture;
Works owned or commissioned by Bindo Altoviti;
Associated objects;
Works incorrectly connected with Bindo Altoviti;
Documents;
Appendices;
Dilectus filius bindus de altovitis: The Farnese and Bindo Altoviti, Antonio Ernesto Denunzio;
Between Bindo Altoviti and Cosimo I: Averardo Serristori, Medici Ambassador in Rome, Emanuela Ferretti;
Bibliography;
Index.