Event Details
Tue, November 15, 2022
18:30 – 20:00
SALA DA BALLO
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Florence
Italy
RSVP: lapietra.events@nyu.edu
Eleonora di Toledo and the Creation of the Boboli Gardens by Bruce Edelstein, a book presentation by Michael Cole, Howard McP. Davis Professor of Art History, Columbia University, and Sara Galletti, Associate Professor of Art and Architectural History at Duke University, in conversation with the author. Introduced and moderated by Larry Wolff and Perri Klass, Co-Directors NYU Florence.
DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK
In celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Eleonora di Toledo, this book examines the origins and significance of her greatest work of artistic patronage, the Boboli Gardens.
Conceived from the outset as a vast estate in the heart of Renaissance Florence, Boboli represents a pivotal moment in the history of the Pitti Palace, in which the traditional relationship between architecture and landscape was inverted: extensive, elaborate gardens now assumed the role of protagonist while the palace was initially relegated to a secondary role.
Fresh archival research confirms that the Spanish princess was responsible for the patronage of the gardens until her death. A key element of this study focuses on the development of Eleonora’s taste in viceregal Naples, prompting a reconsideration of Boboli, beyond its traditional image as part of a glorious continuum of Medici gardens.
This richly illustrated, beautifully produced volume offers a fresh approach for historians of art, architecture, and landscape architecture, but is also highly readable and intended for garden enthusiasts and a broader public interested in history, literature, and the history of the Medici and Tuscany.
Featured Biographies
Michael Cole
HOWARD MCP. DAVIS PROFESSOR OF ART HISTORY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Sara Galletti
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ART, ART HISTORY AND VISUAL STUDIES, DUKE UNIVERSITY
Sara Galletti received an M.Arch. from IUAV (Venice) and a joint Ph.D. in the History of Architecture from the Sorbonne (Paris) and IUAV. Her field of research is early modern architectural theory and practice, with a focus on early modern Europe and the Mediterranean. She has published on secular and religious architecture, on Philibert de L’Orme, on the urban history of Paris, on the relations between space and social structures, as well as on the history of stereotomy. Sara Galletti is working on a book-length project tentatively titled History of Stone Vaulting in the Pre-Modern Mediterranean: Practices, Theories, and Patterns of Knowledge Transfer. The project explores the history of a stone vaulting technique called stereotomy from a transnational, longue durée perspective across the Mediterranean from the third century BCE through the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
Bruce Edelstein
COORDINATOR FOR GRADUATE PROGRAMS AND ADVANCED RESEARCH AT NYU FLORENCE
His numerous publications focus primarily on the works of sixteenth-century Medici court painters and sculptors, such as Bronzino, Cellini, Pontormo and Tribolo, with a particular emphasis on the artistic patronage of Eleonora di Toledo. He was co-curator of the exhibition Miraculous Encounters: Pontormo from Drawing to Painting, seen at the Gallerie degli Uffizi in Florence, the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 2018-19.