BERNARDO BUONTALENTI. Architect, sculptor, painter, and miniaturist, born in Florence c. 1536, died there on 6 June 1608. A most remarkable figure of Florentine Mannerism, Buontalenti established himself above all as an architect, showing affinities ALAMANNI (v.), whom he surpassed, however, in more immediate inventiveness. For Buontalenti, the plastic-decorative value of coats-of-arms, garlands, shells, volutes, etc., in bizarre pre-Baroque developments that do not merely overlay but arise together with the architectural organism, is a concrete requirement; the latter thus often assumes the preciosity—and ultimately the singular value—of an enlarged piece of goldsmith’s work.
Buontalenti’s activity, in the service of the Grand Dukes Cosimo I and his son Francesco, was vast. It manifested itself especially in the architecture of palaces and villas in the forms that characterize the environs of Florence. His first architectural work was the Villa of Pratolino, later demolished; noteworthy are the Casino Mediceo, now the Palazzo di Giustizia (1574), and, still in Florence, the Grotta di Boboli, conceived to house Michelangelo’s four Prisoners, part of the Palazzo Nonfinito, etc. He executed other secondary works in S. Maria Maggiore and in S. Spirito, the façade of the church of S. Trinità and, for the same church, the staircase leading to the choir, now in S. Stefano. He produced designs and a model (Museo dell’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 stage sets and machinery for festivals and spectacles, and fireworks, was also extensive, earning him the nickname “dalle girandole.” — See Pl. XV.