ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the years that Luigi di Giovanni Battista Del Riccio spent in Rome, through an analysis of unpublished and rediscovered documents. Luigi was officially employed in the Strozzi bank, the Medici's fiercest opponents, but at the same time sent homages, as porphyry vases and ancient and modern medals, to Cosimo I de’ Medici, shrewdly playing a role between pro- and anti-Medici factions. New evidence shows Luigi's involvement in the marble and pietre dure's market in Rome, which sheds light on his strong relations with Florentine sculptors, such as Baccio Bandinelli and Nanni di Baccio Bigio. Luigi's tie with Michelangelo Buonarroti may be the result of the same involvement as he was Michelangelo's factotum until the former's death in 1546; to honour Luigi's loyalty, Michelangelo provided him with the design for the tomb of Cecchino Bracci, Luigi's nephew, in Santa Maria in Aracoeli. A previously unpublished document offers new insights on such commission, assessing who was its actual executor and where the tomb originally stood, and makes possible some considerations on Luigi's “collection”.
