Dateline: Italy, Florence, the Uffizi Gallery, Room 65; A Thursday in the middle of March, around 9:15 in the morning. Attending a Private Audience with Eleanora di Toledo.
Yes, it really is a Private Audience: none of the other visitors to the gallery have yet penetrated as far as Room 65, so Lois and I are on our own standing in front of this magnificent painting by Agnolo di Cosimo, better known as Bronzino, in the latest of our ‘one-step Uffizi’ jaunts.[1]
Some years ago, when I first saw this portrait, of Eleanora di Toledo and her son Giovanni de’ Medici, I thought she looked rather sad, and the adjectives aloof and disdainful also sprang to mind. Not the sort of girl with whom you have fun enjoying an evening aperitivo. And her young son doesn’t look much friendlier, staring solemnly from the canvas a couple of feet away from us.
Then I realised the painting has little to do with Eleanora or Giovanni, rather it is all about – the dress. And showing off. Not just Bronzino showing off his wonderful technique, but the Medici (Eleanora is married to Cosimo I, Duke of Florence) telling the world who’s boss. The dress is an in-your-face symbol of power: we are rich, we run this place and if our clothes break the sumptuary laws, so what?
But before we get bogged down in the back story of Medicean politics and personalities, let’s do what we’re really here for: examine this masterpiece closely and carefully. The first thing that Lois points out is that the background is not simply a plain, polychromatic blue. There are subtle variations in shade, and the blue around Eleonora’s head is lighter, creating an effect rather like a halo, suggesting that the duke and his wife were divinely blessed, all part of the process of maintaining and enhancing Medici power.
And what about the dress? It is of heavily brocaded silk velvet with black arabesques intertwined with gold looped strands, all painstakingly reproduced by Bronzino, as can be seen in the close-up photograph below. [It has been suggested, incidentally, that the gold belt, adorned with jewels, was made by Benvenuto Cellini.]
The paintings of this era are always full of symbols: it is not just the sumptuous dress as an expression of wealth and power: its pomegranate motif symbolises fertility, while Eleanora’s arm on her son’s shoulder demonstrates the continuity of the Medici line.
Eleanora and Cosimo were married in 1537, when she was 17, and his attraction to her is demonstrated by the fact that he turned down a larger dowry for her elder sister. To be fair to Eleanora, I’m sure she looked friendlier in the flesh than in the portrait, which, painted in the Mannerist style, rejected naturalism and required those emotionless gazes. Their loving domesticity was an example to all, and Eleanora had no fewer than 11 children by Cosimo.
Cosimo spent much of his time consolidating his autocratic power, strengthening his fortifications, establishing a Florentine navy, defeating enemies like the Sienese – and most important for us today, consolidating the civil service under one roof in magnificent offices (the Uffizi) designed by Giorgio Vasari. Cosimo’s reign also saw the redecoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, the renovation of the Pitti Palace and the creation of the Boboli Gardens, as well as paintings by Pontormo and Bronzino, and sculpture by Cellini and Giambologna. Michelangelo could no longer be persuaded to stay, however, and the period of Florence as the ‘workshop of masterpieces’ was drawing to a close.
Cosimo was heartbroken over Eleanor’s death and that of Giovanni and another son, Garzia, from malaria in 1562, and in 1564 he retired from public life, his son Francesco de’ Medici becoming Regent.
In Room 65 of the Uffizi, Eleanora’s portrait is surrounded by half a dozen paintings of her children, including a delightful Bronzino of Giovanni, when he was 18 months or so old. This bubbly, bouncing boy is a far cry from the solemn child accompanying his mother in her portrait, if indeed that is Giovanni.
It used to be thought that Eleanora’s portrait was painted in the 1550s, but modern scholarship suggests a date around 1545. The happy portrait of Giovanni was created around the same time. So, if it is Giovanni, the boy in Eleanora’s portrait can scarcely be more than two years old. I think he looks older than that, and my suspicion is that it is actually Francesco de’ Medici, the son and heir, who was born in 1541. If you are commissioning a picture which emphasises the continuity of the Medici line, why use a younger son instead of the heir himself? Just to confirm you have a ‘spare’ as well as an heir? Possibly. Do you think the serious boy in Eleanora’s portrait is the same as the laughing 18-month-old in the other? I have my doubts, though the experts disagree with me.
Oh dear! We are getting bogged down in history again. After our Private Audience, it’s time to pay our final respects to Eleanora and her son (whoever he may be) and leave, glancing neither to right or to left, heading out for coffee and a brioche in the Florentine sunshine — and to think about what we will discover in our next ‘one-stop Uffizi’ adventure.
[1] You may recollect that Lois and I are working on an idea to avoid the cultural overload that comes with trying to look at too many painting masterpieces in a short space of time. We call it the ‘One-Stop Uffizi.’
The idea is simple: one of us chooses a picture before we go to the gallery; we enter and walk briskly, glancing neither to left or right, until arrive at the picture we have chosen. Then we spend 10 minutes really looking at the picture. (We will have done some previous research so as well enjoying the artistry, we will know something of the back story.) Then we leave briskly, glancing neither to left nor to right, resisting the temptations as we pass.