Giovanni de' Bardi, Abridged Summary of the Beauties of the City of Florence (edited by Eliana Carrara)

Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
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Giovanni de’ Bardi
Ristretto delle bellezze della città di Firenze
[Abridged Summary of the Beauties of Florence]

Edited by Eliana Carrara

ETS Publishers, 2014

Witnesses

The Ristretto delle bellezze della città (Abridged summary of the beauties of the city of Florence) is a text that is handed over in the form of a manuscript. Of it, three copies are known: one is kept at the National Central Library of Florence (ms. Palatino 917), a second one (ms. A.VI.42) is located at the Intronati City Library in Siena, and a third is preserved in the Florence Riccardiana Library (Riccardiano 2020). In all three cases, these are witnesses without indication of an author and a title.

Eliana Carrara, however, who curated this critical edition, carrying it on the Palatino manuscript and indicating the other two ones as variants, is able to identify both the author and the date of execution from internal evidence of the text. We learn (and the evidence is convincing) that the author of the work is Giovanni de' Bardi (see page 10), a prominent figure in the cultural milieu of the Medici in the years of Francesco I de' Medici. And we understand also that the Ristretto is compiled at the beginning of 1592, a few years after Francis has passed away (1587) and his brother, i.e.  Ferdinand I, has taken the power.

A courtesan text

These references to history events are to be taken into great consideration. The Ristretto is, in fact, a substantially courtesan writing, dedicated to the consort of Ferdinand, Christina of Lorraine, who had married him in 1589. It is quite obvious that the ultimate purpose of the paper is to flatter the Grand Duchess, for a completely personal purpose. The handover between Francis and Ferdinand, in those months, is implying changes in the entourage of the Grand Duke. Ferdinand wants to mark a clear discontinuity with respect to the management and associates of Francis, and of course the fact that Cristiano de' Bardi was one of the latter places him in a position of particular weakness. It should also be said that, in this sense, the Ristretto had no effect, since the author moved to Rome in 1592 and remained there for more than a decade.

A courtesan writing, it was said, with the characteristics of the literature of this genre. Definitely not an artistic guide to the town, as it can instead be said be seen (even within well-known limits) for the Memoriale (Memorial) of Francesco Albertini (1510) and as certainly were the Le bellezze della città di Firenze (Beauties of the city of Florence), published just a few months before Bardi’s text (1591) by Francesco Bocchi. As "Beauties of the city of Florence", in fact, Bardi means not so much the works of art that it was possible to visit, but, more generally, all the qualities, whether natural or human, that characterized the capital of the Grand Duchy of the Medici: from the healthy climate, the abundance of water, the prosperity of businesses to the system of government and, of course, the wisdom of those who governed Florence. Everything is exposed according to precise rhetorical rules and following earlier literary models, which the curator does not fail to identify and to bring to the attention of the reader.

Andrea del Sarto, Punishment of the Gamblers (ca. 1509-1510)
Florence, Basilica della Santissima Annunziata

The taste in Florence at the end of the sixteenth Century

At a first glance, then, reading the Ristretto might seem disappointing; certainly it is, if we take a 'positivist' view and compile a dry list of what has not been said, rather than focusing on what one can read.

Andrea del Sarto, Restoration of a girl possessed with a devil (ca. 1509-1510)
Florence, Basilica della Santissima Annunziata

Andrea del Sarto, Death of San Filippo Benizzi and resurrection of a young boy (1510),
Florence, Basilica della Santissima Annunziata

And here is the main merit of Eliana Carrara. In fact, when one is confronted with texts like this one by Bardi, the real skill lies in reading among the lines. At a more analytical reading, one can capture aspects of extreme interest. For example, if the myth of Michelangelo (who died in 1564) continues to be persistent, it is accompanied by the recovery of personalities of the fifteenth century: Brunelleschi first of all, but also Leon Battista Alberti and Donatello. Bardi’s (very limited in general) quotations about the artists of the sixteenth century are in fact limited to Ammannati (Carrara explains this with the mutual attendance between the Florentine architect and Ferdinando de 'Medici, thereby another 'courtesan' quote) and Andrea del Sarto. And here the curator does not fail to point out that this is an accurate indicator of the taste of the times. The revaluation of Andrea del Sarto is a tangible phenomenon in Florence in the late sixteenth century. A first prove is the Discorso sopra l’eccellenza delle opere di Andrea del Sarto, pittore fiorentino (Discourse on the excellence of the works of Andrea del Sarto, Florentine painter), made by the very young Bocchi in 1567; and just in the Bellezze della città di Firenze (Beauties of the city of Florence), published by Bocchi in 1591, the painter achieves an unconditional glory. After citing the many talents of Michelangelo and Raphael, Bocchi adds: "...but, no doubt, Andrea is the sovereign, for  his figures do not seem to be made with art or with human genius, but admirably produced by nature."

Andrea del Sarto, Miraculous cure by Relics of St. Filippo Benizzi (1510),
Firenze, Basilica della Santissima Annunziata

Andrea del Sarto, St. Filippo Benizi restores a leper (1510)
Florence, Basilica della Santissima Annunziata

Clearly, Bardi shows the same tastes of Bocchi (and it is strongly influenced by him). Let us give the floor directly to the curator: "To consider the Ristretto by Bardi allows... to cull between the lines of the Florentine cultural climate at a crucial time in its history, not only from the merely courtesan point of view of the exchange of the establishment in power, with the subsequent earthquake of sinecures and favours related to it, but especially in an extremely important juncture in terms of art history. We are, in fact, in the years when in Florence the lesson of Vasari's Lives [note of the editor: the second edition of the Lives is dated 1568], is not felt as being appropriate anymore, and is replaced by a revival of the great past of the city (also reflected in architecture) during the Fifteenth century. That past also embraces the sixteenth century painter Andrea del Sarto, in a specifically local - and in itself perfectly accomplished - response to the by then Roman glories of Raphael and Michelangelo. It was the way already indicated, however, by Bocchi since 1584, when he, by publishing the Eccellenza del San Giorgio di Donatello (Excellence of St George of Donatello), had broken the perfect diptych of Vasari (and Borghini) - synthesized in the effective formulation "Either the spirit of Donatello operates in Buonarroti, or the one of Buonarroti decided to  operate in advance in Donatello" - to eventually give without hesitation the palm of victory to the sculptor of Florentine Humanism" (pp. 25-26).

If it is re-read and contextualized in the view that Carrara has brilliantly summarized in the above lines, the entire Ristretto reveals a far greater historical interest than what could have been initially mentioned.