Feste nelle nozze de don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della ... sig. Bianca Cappello, Florence, October 14, 1579

Feste nelle nozze de don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della ... sig. Bianca Cappello, Florence, October 14, 1579

Raffaello Gualterotti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Duke Francesco de' Medici and Bianca Cappello's marriage in 1578 was celebrated with great pomp, partially intended to help establish her in Florentine society. This festival book records the many celebrations organized, including an elaborate pageant in the courtyard of the Pitti palace, where wildly extravagant tableaux were performed. The entire event was said to have cost 300,000 ducats.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Feste nelle nozze de don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della ... sig. Bianca Cappello, Florence, October 14, 1579Feste nelle nozze de don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della ... sig. Bianca Cappello, Florence, October 14, 1579Feste nelle nozze de don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della ... sig. Bianca Cappello, Florence, October 14, 1579Feste nelle nozze de don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della ... sig. Bianca Cappello, Florence, October 14, 1579Feste nelle nozze de don Francesco Medici gran duca di Toscana; et della ... sig. Bianca Cappello, Florence, October 14, 1579

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.