The Flowering of Florence: Botanical Art for the Medici

Living immersed in landscapes of great natural beauty, Tuscans have always harbored a deep love of flowers and gardens. During the Renaissance, in intellectual circles this propensity developed naturally into an interest in horticulture and the botanical sciences, subjects that would co-exist in perfect harmony with the Medici family's love of the arts.

Published to coincide with an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, of about sixty-five works of art, primarily from Florentine collections, The Flowering of Florence explores the close ties between art and the natural sciences in Tuscany as seen in the botanical renderings created in Florence for the Medici grand dukes from the late 1500s through the early 1700s.

The catalog comprises an essay and checklist with reproductions of the exquisite works in the show. Examples include Jacopo Ligozzi's plant drawings in tempera on paper from the Uffizi Gallery, Giovanna Garzoni's fruit and flower paintings on vellum, and Bartolomeo Bimbi's later and much larger still-life paintings.