A new look at Filippo Baldinucci
Posted By Eva Struhal, Monday, May 27, 2019
Updated: Monday, May 27, 2019

Although one of the most frequently used sources for the art of the Italian Seicento, the writings of the Florentine art historian Filippo Baldinucci (1624-1671) remain drastically understudied.

Baldinucci was the renowned adviser to Cardinal Leopoldo de Medici, a connoisseur of drawings and engravings, a collector, historian, art theorist, and lexicographer. Baldinucci’s most influential work are the Notizie, a painstaking reconstruction of the biographies of past and contemporary artists. He is also known for creating the Vocabolario Toscano dell’ Arte del Disegno, one of the first vocabularies of artistic and workshop terminology for art connoiseurs. Baldinucci originally planned the Notizie to bring together an exceptionally wide panorama of the European artistic scene. This plan did not come to fruition. Despite the fact that Baldinucci had to give up his initial plan of adopting an encyclopedic approach, the Notizie could be considered the most advanced point in art criticism of seventeenth-century Italy.

Our image of Baldinucci as an art theorist remains contradictory: while some scholars consider him only an epigone of Giorgio Vasari, others maintain that his historical approach is more rigorous and therefore more “modern,” closer to our own way of practicing art history. Such blurry contours of Baldinucci’s intellectual profile underscore the necessity to take a new look at this important art theorist and – through him – at the complex intellectual and artistic culture of the Seicento Fiorentino.

Please send your contact information, paper title (15 words max), abstract (150-word max), up to five keywords, and a curriculum vitae (300-word max) to Eva Struhal (eva.struhalhst.ulaval.ca) by August 1st, 2019.

Organizers: Eva Struhal (Université Laval, Québec); Elena Fumagalli (Università degli Studi di Modena); Massimiliano Rossi (Università del Salento).