Material and Temporal Powers at the Casino di San Marco (1574–1621)

Abstract

Built in 1574 by court engineer and architect Bernardo Buontalenti for Francesco I de Medici, the Casino di San Marco represents a unique example of a late Renaissance site of alchemical research, art collecting and political court. Francesco I’s program to enhance the chemical arts and make it into a body of highly sophisticated knowledge was reflected in the architecture of the Casino which hosted a number of laboratories, several of which survived Francesco’s premature death in 1587 and remained active until the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was in this building that the bulk of the first and most successful treatise on glassmaking, Antonio Neri’s L’arte vetraria (1612), took shape. On the basis of recent archival research, which has provided fresh evidence on the artists employed in the Casino by Francesco and by his son Antonio and on the artifacts which were produced in the laboratories, this contribution briefly explores the history of the Casino and its role in putting chemical arts at the centre of the Medici’s patronage. Galileo’s arrival in Florence and his telescopic discoveries did not overshadow the extensive presence of chemical arts that, in fact, survived the impact of Galilean science