ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 explores the tensions of courtly pleasure and civic discontent in the age of Francesco I. Francesco’s villa at Pratolino astounded visitors with its water-driven fountains and automata and inventive conflations of art and nature, such as the portrayal of Thetis set inside a gargantuan figure of the Apennines. This chapter considers Neptune’s appearance in spectacular festivals across Europe as well as outstanding water-related displays staged by Francesco for his wedding to Bianca Cappello in 1579 and the wedding of Virginia de’ Medici and Cesare d’Este in 1586. Bianca’s ties to Venice resulted in a festival with inventive marine subjects, from an enormous fish out of whose mouth emerged a fish-clad entourage of musicians, to a gilded Venetian galley guided by Neptune and his hippocamps. Such works reflected Francesco’s taste for technical marvels and wonders of nature and artifice. The chapter also traces more mundane problems of managing water in the city, looking at reports of the Capitani di Parte Guelfa. The concluding section brings attention back to Francesco’s reputation as an ineffective ruler, chronicling cases of abuse and criticism suffered by Ammannati’s Neptune Fountain, a victim of both physical damage and pointed political satire.
