ABSTRACT
In Il Riposo of 1584, Raffaello Borghini used the word ‘wonder’ (maraviglia) to describe his reaction to the works of art commissioned and collected in late sixteenth-century Florence:
Borghini’s description conjures up an image of the diverse early modern collections known as Kunst-and Wunderkammern, famously defined by Samuel Quicchelberg in 1565 as a collection combining both man-made works of art (artificialia) and objects from nature (naturalia).2 Detleff Heikamp has persuasively argued that New World artefacts, Borghini’s ‘new and rare objects from the Indies’, were an indispensable part of the creation of the Kunstkammer through their association with ‘scientific’ curiosity and pure aesthetic pleasure.3 Indeed, the appearance of such objects in
1 ‘Ma di gran maraviglia à vedere è uno scrittoio in cinque gradi distinto, dove sono con bell’ordini con partite statue piccole di marmo, di bronzo di terra e di cera; e vi sono composte pietre fini di più forte, vasi di porcellana, e di christallo di montagna, conche marini di più maniere, piramidi di pietre di fran valuta, gioe, medaglie, maschere, frutte & animali congelati in pietre finissimi, e tante cose nuoue e rare venute d’India, e di Turchia che sanno stuprie chiunque le ramira.’ R. Borghini, Il Riposo, facsimile edition (Milan, 1967), 12-13. All translations are my own unless otherwise stated. This description of the Villa Vecchietto outside Florence may reflect the ideals of the stanzino in the Palazzo Vecchio (see below) rather that the reality of Florentine collections. Several of the items to which Borghini refers, for example the petrified fruits, animals, new and rare objects, were not in either the inventory of the Gallery of San Marco or the Tribuna.
