BUONTALENTI, BERNARDO. - Architect, sculptor, painter, and miniaturist, b. in Firenze about 1536, d. there on 6 June 1608. A most notable figure of Florentine Mannerism, B. distinguished himself above all in architecture, showing affinities ALAMANNI (v.), whom, however, he surpassed in more immediate inventiveness. For B., the plastic-decorative value of coats of arms, festoons, shells, volutes, etc. is a concrete requirement, in bizarre pre-Baroque developments that are not superimposed upon the architectural organism but arise together with it; it therefore often assumes the preciousness, and ultimately the singular value, of an enlarged work of goldsmithing.
B.’s activity, in the service of Duke Cosimo I and his son Francesco, was extremely extensive. It was manifested especially in the architecture of palaces and villas, in the forms characteristic of the surroundings of Firenze. His first architectural work was the Villa di Pratolino, later demolished; worthy of mention are the Casino Mediceo, now Palazzo Giustizia (1574), and, also in Firenze, the Grotta di Boboli, conceived to house Michelangelo’s four Prigioni, part of the Palazzo Nonfinito, etc. He executed other minor works in S. Maria Maggiore and in S. Spirito, the façade of the church of S. Trinita and, for the same church, the staircase giving access to the choir, now in S. Stefano. He produced drawings and a model (museum of the Opera) for the façade of the Florentine cathedral, in a style proper to late Mannerism, already sensitive to the imminent taste of the Baroque.
His activity as a decorator and inventor of sets and machinery for festivities and entertainments, as well as fireworks, was likewise extensive; for this reason he was called «dalle girandole». - Vedi Tav. XV.