Resumen de Il prospettografo del Cigoli tra pratica dell'arte e collezionismo scientifico
The idea that Lodovico Cigoli's perspectograph could have been connected in any way with the Medici collection of scientific objects has crossed the author's mind more than once, but always superficially. Two new drawings now enable us to go deeper, strengthening the hypothesis that the instrument was made by the artist with a personal wish to see it displayed, together with the treatise that describes its operations, in the celebrated Stanzino delle Matematiche of the Uffizi Gallery. The sheets (in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin and Library of Congress, Washington, DC) illustrate two versions of the instrument that we might define a 'collectors' item'. In particular, the second --a work by Giulio Parigi-- has ornamental elements that resemble those found in the example seen by Jean-François Niceron in the collection of the Councillor of the King of France, Louis Hesselin; and it is likely that the latter, perhaps a gift of Leopoldo de' Medici, is the very one made by the artist for the Medici collection.
