Premium Featured Accommodation

History of Florentine Architecture in the 18th Century - Ferdinando III and the end of Rococò

In 1790 Leopold returned to Vienna to become Emperor and in Florence was succeeded by his son Ferdinando (who took the title Ferdinand III to emphasize the continuity between the house of Medici and the house of Lorraine). Ferdinand chose the second floor apartment in the right wing of the Pitti Palace as the "Winter Quarters", and commissioned Paoletti to do the work.

The decorations of the doors, walls and ceilings, mainly by Giuseppe Maria Terreni confirm the transition from rococo to classic tastes in the continuity of the idea of light, airy ornamentation. Heavy crimson velvet was replaced by luminous (white, yellow, green) silk satin. Luigi Catani decorated the grand duchess's bath (1796-97) with scenes of ancient Roman ruins and life with figures dressed in the new "à la grecque" fashion.

While Boboli was still the palace gardens, it maintained the concept of the closed place, even though it was partly public domain, the Cascine dell'Isola proposed the idea of a park without any definitive boundaries. In 1732 Joseph Spence compared the Cascine to a modern English park and eighteenth century visitors noted its "country" character. Between 1766 and 1788 Leopold sold the farmlands (registered in the Regio Scrittoio delle Possessioni) of the Cascine dell'Isola located at San Donnino, accentuating the role of the park as place for the citizenry to stroll and find amusement.

In 1785 the grand duke commissioned both Paoletti and Manetti to draw up plans for the country house or Fattoria Granducale to be built in the middle of the park to celebrate the then twenty year old policy of agricultural reform, as it were, in Tuscany. Manetti's designs were chosen, as they replicated the Palladian style with curved, porticoed wings. The dimensions of the project, however, were reduced when work was actually being in 1787, overseen by Salvetti. The house became an isolated building, still in the Palladian style, and two buildings, stables and hayloft, and farmers' house, were set farther back.

In 1796 Manetti did additional work (all rigorously supervised by Cacialli) to accentuate the aspect of the park dotted by architecture which through its references to Egyptian culture and more generally to the era's passion for antiquity, confirmed the richness and complexity of this idea of the classic. These were the pyramid-shaped ice house, the Narcissus fountain (also a pyramid), the small Casino next to the Parco delle Mulina (both of which may have been designed by Paoletti) and the wall enclosing the garden behind the farm, today known as Le Pavoniere, decorated with archeological finds, pine cones, vases and other terra cotta pieces, and a two big bird-cages shaped like round temples with hemispherical domes, Corinthian columns, friezes decorated with peacocks and leaf-shaped tiles, at either end. In 1799 Ferdinand III had to return to Vienna and in 1801 he abdicated his rule of Tuscany which would remain under French dominion until 1814.

Articles