ABSTRACT
The Pitti Palace and surrounding Boboli Gardens provide a palimpsest of evolving taste from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The Pitti Palace had been built in the mid-fifteenth century by Luca Pitti, a banker and colleague of Cosimo the Elder. Graceless, taciturn and short, Francesco was a disappointing ruler who preferred his private obsessions to his public duties. He had little interest in the Pitti Palace as he was fixated on the rural villa, Pratolino; he was building for his mistress. The wedding celebrations at the Pitti Palace were designed to proclaim the Medici as the equal of any European dynasty – and they succeeded. By the end of the revels, it is estimated that 9,000 barrels of wine had been consumed and 2,000 guests had been housed and fed at the court’s expense. When Ferdinando died in 1609, his body lay in state in the Pitti palace.
