Resumen de Baccio Baldini e la "mascherata della genealogia degli dei"
A new hypothesis is advanced about the author of the allegorical program for the parade celebrating the marriage of Prince Francesco de' Medici with Archduchess Joan of Austria in Florence, Italy, on February 21, 1565. Part of the celebrations organized by Cosimo I for his son's wedding, this parade of 21 allegorical floats and over 200 costumed figures was marked by unprecedented pomp, but also by an abstruse iconographic program of infinitely erudite subtlety that most attendees failed to understand. For this very reason, the same year saw the publication in Florence of the anonymous Discorso sopra la Mascherata della Genealogia degl'Iddei de' Gentili, where every detail of the parade was minutely described and explained in the light of antique texts. Cross-examination of this text, three series of drawings that can be connected to the event, and the correspondence of Vincenzio Borghini—the supposed author of the iconographic program—suggests that the author of both the text and the iconographic program may have been Baccio Baldini, Cosimo I's physician and erudite scholar.
