ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides the dynamic story of one dynasty’s struggle with water, to control its flow and manage its representation. It aims to present a rigorous examination of the period but one that is also diverse and lively, like the festivals and water-related paraphernalia that it investigates. The book traces the trajectory of Neptune’s many guises, meanings and contexts, with a special focus on Bartolomeo Ammannati’s Neptune Fountain, the most public work of them all. It explores the tensions of courtly pleasure and civic discontent in the age of Francesco I, a prince who shared with his father Cosimo an interest in water but whose introspective nature made him a less-effective ruler. As Ammannati’s long-awaited Neptune Fountain was finally unveiled in 1574, other representations of the Olympian and his retinue continued to proliferate in Florence and beyond.
