ABSTRACT

In the Bellezze, Francesco Bocchi uses the terms bello, bellissimo and bellezza a great many times and in many ways; sometimes his usage seems to denote something specific and carefully considered, at times it seems very casual, even wilfully indiscriminate. Though Bocchi often treats beauty as if it were a matter of ornament, there is another and contrary notion that runs through his text. The idea of beauty as something relating to an inner quality is also found in the discussion of the Laurentian Library, where the architecture is said to function like a beautiful body, containing the animo gentile of learning preserved in the books housed there. The ability to objectify is a highly developed skill, and one of Bocchi’s aims is to offer instruction in it: the Bellezze is not only about what to look at, but how to look.