Building Blocks of Power: The Architectural Commissions and Decorative Projects of the Pucci Family in the Renaissance Carla Adella D’Arista Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2017 © 2017 Carla A. D’Arista All rights reserved 1 ABSTRACT Building Blocks of Power: The Architectural Commissions and Decorative Projects of the Pucci Family in the Renaissance Carla A. D’Arista This dissertation analyzes the dates and artistic provenance of key architectural and decorative projects commissioned by the Pucci family for their townhomes, villas, and palaces during the Renaissance. It identifies the family’s insistent identification with prestigious Renaissance architects and artisans as a key element in a political and social stratagem that took its cue from the humanist ethos cultivated by their political patrons, the Medici. Temporally, this study is bracketed on both ends of the Renaissance by architectural commissions related to the Pucci’s long-standing patronage of Santissima Annunziata, the most important pilgrimage church in Florence. Methodoligically, it is an archival project that relies principally on previously unknown letters, wills, payment records, inventories, and notarial documents. 1 Table of Contents List of Captions………………………………………………….. ii. Abbreviations …………………………………………………… iii. Conventions ……………………………………………………… iv. Acknowledgements ……………………………………………… v. Introduction: “Beneath the Shadow of Thy Wings I Sleep:” Artistic Identity as Political Stratagem ……………………….. 1. I. From the Beginning: Puccio Pucci (1389-1449) …………….. 13. II. The Pucci Oratory in Santissima Annunziata …………….. 36. III. Antonio di Puccio Pucci: Dynastic Promotion and Image-Building ………………………………………………….. 79. IV. Casa Pucci in Florence (1503-1537): Fashioning Social Hierarchies ……………………………………………………….. 124. V. Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci in the Eternal City (1514-1531): The Cultural and Curial Lifestyle of a Medicean Loyalist …………. 162. VI. Pucci Patronage of Giuliano da Sangallo and Antonio da the Sangallo Younger ………………………………………………… 228. VII. Cardinals Antonio and Roberto Pucci (1531-1547): It’s All in the Family ………………………………………………… 335. VIII. Conclusion: Reframing Ambition, Wealth, and Dishonor (1547-1612) …………………………………………… 385. Works Cited ……………………………………………………… 420. Appendix ………………………… Uploaded as a Supplemental PDF i List of Captions Figure 1. AP, Three Degrees of Male Consanguinity in the Pucci Family in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries ……………… 1. Figure 2. Eighteenth-century painted copy after the late fifteenth century “Chain Map”, Florence, Museo Storico Topigrafico di Firenze Com’era ………………………………….…………...... 13. Figure 3. Santissima Annunziata in the Seventeenth Century, Archivio di Stato, Florence ……………………………………… 36. Figure 4. Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinita, Florence. Detail of the Portrait of Antonio Pucci with Lorenzo de’ Medici and Francesco Sassetti ……………………………… 79. Figure 5. Uffizi 764A. Pianta del palazzo sul canto de Pucci di messer Rafaello Pucci di Firenze ………………………………………… 124. Figure 6. Parmigianino, Portrait of Cardinal Lorenzo Pucci, ca. 1529-1532. On loan to the National Gallery, London ……… 162. Figure 7. Uffizi 765A. Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Groundplan, Casa da Roberto Pucci , Florence ………………… 228. Figure 8. Pier Francesco Foschi, Portrait of Antonio Pucci, 1540. Corsini Collection, Florence ……………………………… 335. Figure 9. Raffaello da Montelupo, Drawing of a Tomb. Uffizi 1613E. Gabinetto di Stampe e Disegni, Uffizi, Florence .… 385. ii Abbreviations Archival Sources Archivio Pucci, Firenze (AP) Archivio di Stato, Firenze (ASF) Archivio Mannelli Galilei Riccardi (MGR) Archivio Martelli Archivio della Famiglia Riccardi (Riccardi) Archivio Venturi Ginori Lisci (VGL) Carte Strozziane, Serie Prima Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo Francese (Corp. Sopp.) Fondo Minerbetti-Pucci Manoscritti Mediceo Avanti il Principato (MAP) Archivio di Stato, Roma (ASR) Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Città del Vaticano (SV) Archivio Palazzo del Sant’Uffizio (APSU) Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) Biblioteca Riccardiana, Firenze (BR) Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Firenze (BNCF) iii Conventions Currencies 1 lira toscana = 20 soldi = 12 crazie 1 paolo = 8 crazie = 2/3 lira 1 soldo = 3 quattrini = 12 denari 1 fiorino = 20 crazie 1 terzone = 2 lire 1 scudo = 7 lire 1 moneta = 10 lire 1 zecchini = 8 fiorini 1 ruspone = 10 zecchini Measures 1 braccio = ml. 0.58, almost two feet. 1 canna = 4 braccia = ml. 2.31 1 braccio quadrato fiorentino = ml. 0.33 See Angelo Martini, Manuale di metrologia, ossia misure, pesi e monete in uso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i poploli Torino (Turin: Loescher, 1883), 208- 209. This reference is available online as Edizione digitale a cura di Guido Mura (Milan: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, 2003). See also Bernocchi, Le monete della Repubblica fiorentina (Florence, 1976) and Ronald E. Zupko , “Italian Weights and Measures from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century ,” American Philosophical Society , 145 (1981). Dates The Florentine year began on March twenty-fifth ( ab incartantione ) rather than on January first. iv Acknowledgments I am deeply grateful for the help and support of the many people who contributed to the preparation of this study. First and foremost, I wish to thank the Pucci family, especially Idanna and Giannozzo, for their generous access to the family archives and introductions to other sources of information about the family patrimony. Idanna has driven me to many of her ancestral homes and pointed me in the direction of others. Giannozzo, in the process of renovating the family chapel in Santissima Annunziata, is the eloquent custodian of a great deal of archival and visual information about the family’s history. His aunt, Cristina Pucci has escorted me through her palazzo in Florence and the family’s Renaissance villa in Granaiolo and explained the provenance of the precious objects within. I would also like to thank Antonio Becherucci and his wife Blanche for the time they have taken from their busy schedules to take me to Casignano and provide me with plans and documents related to the villa. My thanks also extend to Caterina Borgeoli and her father Carlo for their hospitality during our visits to Uliveto and for arranging a meeting with Massimo Ricci, who has spent years investigating Brunelleschi’s contribution to the fortified castello . This dissertation began with a summer in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe in the Uffizi, an internship arranged by my PhD advisor Francesco Benelli. I am deeply indebted to Professor Benelli, an architectural historian whose understanding of the antique precedents resurrected in Renaissance architecture is foundational to this study. His teaching fostered my scholarly interest in architectural history and his insights lead v to several of the attributions and explanations contained in this manuscript. My colleague Lorenzo Vigotti has also generously supported me in my quest. Alessio Assonitis and Sheila Barker of the Medici Archive Project in Florence have tutored me in paleography and created a community of scholars who share a passion for archival research. This dissertation would not have been possible without the assistance of Veronica Vestri, a paleographer who can read what no one else has been able to decipher for hundreds of years. Aside from her expertise as an architectural historian, I wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Francesca Parrini during my investigation of the family papers preserved in the Pucci archives. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Sheryl Reiss, who has carefully and thoughtfully read through this study. Lastly, I would like to thank my husband, George Frampton, for his love and endless patience. I dedicate this study to my parents, especially my father, Robert D’Arista, who, had he lived, would have been pleased with my efforts to take up where he left off in his study of the history and practice of art. vi Figure 1. AP, Three Degrees of Male Consanguinity in the Pucci Family in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Introduction “Beneath the Shadow of Thy Wings I Sleep:” Artistic Identity as Political Stratagem Relying on previously unknown letters, wills, payment records, inventories, and notarial documents, this dissertation establishes the dates and artistic provenance of key architectural and decorative projects commissioned by the Pucci during the Renaissance. Stalwart supporters of the Medici identified by their distinctive heraldic emblem, a Saracen in profile wearing a white headband, the family’s emulation of the patronage practices of their political benefactors was the crucible for their political, 1 social, and economic ambitions. 1 Pucci influence over a broad spectrum of Renaissance affairs was evident from the time of Puccio Pucci’s (1389-1449) return from exile in the company of Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464) in 1434 to the election of his son Antonio (1418-1484) to the post of gonfaloniere di giustizia in 1462 and again in 1480. 2 A letter written by Niccolò Capponi, whose son married Antonio’s daughter Maddalena, describes the particularly high regard in which the Pucci were held during the difficult years between the expulsion of the Medici from Florence in 1494 and their triumphal return in 1512. 3 The proposal that a Pucci once again be promoted to the office of gonfaloniere of justice makes clear their central role within the inner circle of Medici