ABOUT THE MEDICI GRANDUCAL ARCHIVE:
A Note on Orphaned Material

Though the "ARCHIVIO MEDICEO DEL PRINCIPATO" survived the centuries with only minor losses, it sometimes fell victim to willful mishandling by scholars. In the eighteenth century, the historian Riguccio Galluzzi extracted and failed to refile a vast quantity of documents while writing his Istoria del Granducato di Toscana sotto il governo della casa Medici (Florence, 1781.) This chaotic body of material now constitutes the 676 filze of the "MISCELLANEA MEDICEA" (filling 114 meters of shelf space.)

In 1839-41, a further 21 volumes of correspondence were extracted, mostly relevant to the art patronage of Cardinal Leopoldo de'Medici (1617-75.) This survives as the "CARTEGGIO D'ARTISTI." Fortunately, both the "MISCELLANEA" and the "CARTEGGIO" remain in the Archivio di Stato di Firenze.

Other material wandered somewhat farther afield--to the "Fondo Galileiano" in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, for example. A number of letters (as yet unquantified) from the Medici Granducal Archive are now to be found in foreign collections, where they evidently emigrated in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.

After completing work on the "ARCHIVIO MEDICEO DEL PRINCIPATO'', the MEDICI ARCHIVE PROJECT will access the "MISCELLANEA MEDICEA", the CARTEGGIO D'ARTISTI" and other related material, in the same format and according to the same criteria.

 

For further information please contact: info@medici.org