Resumen de La serie dei ritratti medicei di Giovan Battista Foggini: note d'archivio sulla committenza e la cronologia
The commission for the celebrated series of eight portraits of the Medici family (now in various museums), assembled by Klaus Lankheit and attributed to the Florentine sculptor Giovan Battista Foggini, can now be securely ascribed to Cardinal Francesco Maria de' Medici; the patron had the sculptures made for the Villa di Lappeggi in the period between 1681 and 1687, as proved by payments to the artist published here. Having passed to the Capponi family through the sale of most of the cardinal's art collection (as decided in 1711 by the Congregazione di Carità di San Giovanni Battista), and from the Capponi to the Covoni, the busts were purchased at the end of the nineteenth century by the dealer Stefano Bardini; they were then placed on the art market and dispersed. Archival documentation now makes it possible to fully establish Foggini's authorship, the chronology of each portrait in the series, Medici patronage, and the placement in a room of the villa of the cardinal, in whose posthumous inventories the busts are described in detail.
