Boccardini, Giovanni and Francesco, Florentines

BOCCARDI, GIOVANNI and FRANCESCO, Florentines. — GIOVANNI, illuminator, b. in 1460, was a pupil of Zanobi di Lorenzo. His work was highly esteemed, and he was commissioned to undertake numerous works outside Florence as well. Among the most important are the many codices that he illuminated between 1509 and 1523 for Montecassino. At the same time he executed illuminations for the Opera del Duomo of Florence (1511–18), for the church of S. Lorenzo (1514), for S. Spirito, for the Badia Fiorentina, for S. Pietro in Perugia (1518), and for the Opera del Duomo of Siena (1519). His most refined works are those in the three volumes of the Pandette (1526, Bibl. Naz. di Firenze). Even in his late works B. remained fifteenth-century in character; yet, in comparison with the prevailing taste disseminated by Attavante (v.), he displayed an originality of his own in the new treatment of ornament and decoration, in which motifs inspired by plant forms and gilded backgrounds lighten the compositions. The figures, on the other hand, are awkward and conventional. A collaborator of B. was his son FRANCESCO (d. 1547), who also illuminated, together with Angelo da Terranova, four choir books for S. Pietro in Perugia (1528). Francesco’s importance lies in his attempt to conform to the art of the sixteenth century through an enlargement of forms, the search for spatial depth in architectural backgrounds, and contrasts of light and shade.